Jon Dyer, Master Curator
#1 GF: My sister is coming down and we’re all going to the beach.
Me: Ok.
#1 GF: We’ve got a lot of cleaning to do.
Me: But aren’t we all going to be at the beach?
#1 GF: They’ve never been here before.
Me: [Staring]
#1 GF: [Better staring]
Me: Fine. I’ll clean the toilet, but I’m not cleaning my desk. No way. Just cordon off that whole area with a velvet rope and we’ll say that the Nerdology exhibit is closed for restoration.

Worst
The first thing I saw today after leaving the house was a man standing in front of a large truck in business casual attire shielding his eyes from the hot morning sun. He seemed to be looking around frantically as if he were one of those guys in the movies that see a spaceship fly overhead. When I got closer, I heard him calling out “Helloooooo?” to a row of sleepy houses, and saw the puppy, it’s coat slick, lying in a pool of blood large enough to indicate that there probably wasn’t much left on the inside. I can’t really remember thinking anything about the dog, but I can remember feeling really, really badly for the guy. Killing someone’s puppy is just no way to start a hot summer day.

Pretty Bad
20 minutes later, while still on my way to work, I saw a red Lancer Evolution sitting in traffic going the other way. Like meeting another American in a foreign country, I got really excited about seeing another Evo on the road. Before I could stop myself, I waved at what appeared to be the angriest Asian man I had ever seen outside of a Jet Li movie. By the time my hand was up, I felt bad about it. This type of loss of motor control is one of the reasons that I will never be cool.

Pretty Good
While taking a walk down the beach in the early evening, we came across a kid standing outside his car. “You into hip hop?” he asked. The GF sort of sidestepped him and pointed to me. I was wearing one of my favorite metal t-shirts, and usually have veeeery little time for people that feel like talking to me, but for some reason I said, “Yea, sure. Why?”

The kid was selling a rap CD that he had made and was playing on his car stereo. I couldn’t really hear due to the bad speakers and almost polite volume level, but I didn’t really care. We spent a few minutes talking about where he was from, where he recorded the album, and who was on it.

Because he must get hassled by people about the lack of a “hood” in Plymouth in which to hone his rap skills, he made sure to tell me (a few times) that there was guy from Brooklyn on the CD and that it was sold in Newbury Comics. I guess this was supposed to bump up his street credibility in some way, but that’s the way musicians are. They never tell you that they grew up a big fucking nerd in a bumblefuck town south of Hanson. They usually just bury that bumpkin persona under a bunch of tattoos and a shitty apartment in Allston, becoming the image of cool that no kid raised in the city ever seems to be.

That’s most musicians. This kid was a little too polite for that, and even though he might use the words “gat” and “ho” on his CD, you could see that his mama takes no crap from him at all. The kid wanted $5 for the CD, but I didn’t really care about the cost. I fished out a wadded up five dollar bill out of my pocket and gave it to him. I wasn’t buying a rap CD. I was spending $5 on a little encouragement for what seemed like a nice kid.

While walking away, I opened the CD half expecting to find a CD-r or no CD at all, which probably would’ve given me a laugh, but found a real live CD in there. Go figure.

Best
On the return trip from of the walk, we came across 2 nerds down on the beach. I would guess that they were around 16 years old, meaning that they were past the age that they should’ve traded in the comic book t-shirts that they were wearing for either some sort of “goth black” or “punk plaid,” but they hadn’t. They were still living the comic book life well past the expiration date, which is rare, but no reason to put them in a “Best” section of a post.

No. These nerds were on the beach, in their comic book t-shirts, wielding wooden practice swords. And not only were they wielding them, but they were sword fighting. And they weren’t sword fighting in that 2 minute, goofing around, clack-clack, throw down the sticks and go get some cheese fries and stare at some girls sort of way. They were practically having a 2 person bad sword fighting convention down there. The complete lack of grace and purpose of motion conveyed to me that they learned everything that they needed to do a public sword fighting exhibition by watching Lord of the Rings and Star Wars multiple times in their basement rumpus room. And today was their big day. They were dueling with such focus that I really believe that they were figuring on being rushed by swarms of teenage women for their skill.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that teenage chicks go for 3 things: Teenage dudes with bad moustaches and killer bongs, Teenage dudes with cool cars, and teenage dudes that make killer mix tapes. Nowhere in the previous sentence does it mention comic books, star wars, or public sword fighting displays. It’s just a fact.

And although I have little right to make fun of the socially retarded among us, I couldn’t help but watch them for a good 15 minutes, trying not to stare, laugh, or do anything that might jeopardize the demonstration. I was entranced. It was then that I noticed that everyone walking along the boardwalk was sharing smiles and looks of complete bewilderment with each other. Meat heads, hos, foreign guys, townies (all people who really wouldn’t say word one to each other) were sharing smiles over the these two kids.

At one point, some foreign guys actually looked at the nerds, looked at me, and said something like “Ga goulajiba!” as if I was from Karjakistan and understood what the fuck they were saying. It was one time that I wished I had a video camera and a direct wireless link to the web. OK, it wasn’t the one time, but it was the best way I could’ve ended the day.

Full Circle
While typing this post, lightning struck the local power station, killing the power before I had a chance to save it, making this post a lost digital blip that I would have to try to recapture and retype the next day.

Friday
Borrowed Katamari Damacy, a game with no killing and nearly no violence. I expected it to be a crappy kiddy game, but was pretty fun. You are this little tiny guy who has a ball that he rolls around. As the ball touches objects, they stick to the ball. As the ball gets bigger it is able to pick up bigger and bigger objects. You start so small that thumb tacks are up to your knees, while you might end a round big enough to pick up a building. It sounds stupid, but I was laughing like a little kid a lot of the time.

Saturday
I spent 1/2 the day waiting for the Mitsubishi dealer to do an oil change on my car, proving that “free” service isn’t really free. After leaving at 3:30 from a 1PM oil change, we went to the mall looking for nothing. I figured that picking up a pair of Vans would kill enough time until dinner, but once I got into the mall I completely lost the urge to purchase. I did go into Radio Shack to see if I could find the one piece that I needed for the laser communicator that I’ve been meaning to build. After making several trips to 3 other radio shacks, I started the conversation with the kid behind the counter with, “I’m going to ask you for a part that you’re not going to have…” which is how I should start all conversations with parts people from now on. Not only did the kid have the part, but he knew where it was AND was nerdy enough to be thoroughly interested in discussing what I was building. He was the proof to the GF that I am not the only nerd on Earth, and I am certainly not the biggest.

When leaving the mall, we came across a kid whose age could still be measured in months, who would jump, then scream, then jump again, then scream again. He was so excited about the jumping that neither I nor the GF could control our laughter. The father was walking behind laughing, too, which was so much better than having him turn a kid’s shear joy into a stressful situation.

Sunday
We packed up our chairs and walked to the beach, grabbing a bagel sandwich and a couple of iced coffees at the Dunky’s on the way. The beach seems to be shrinking, and at high tide the waves crash on the sea wall hard enough to shoot waves up 10 feet onto the pavement. The only spots left were coated with stones, surfers, and kids with elevated hormonal levels. I think there were at least 30 surfers in the water.

Once my skin was adequately irritated with me, we left to hit an overpriced open house, and then went to the bookstore to dump $70 on books. I think the GF’s books are all medical in nature, meant to keep her tear ducts thoroughly moist. Mine were the usual: conspiracy theory and books about loners. When we got home, some movies.

Monday
I Put together the T-shirt transfers for the new Swedish baby and her parents, put them in a shoe box with the tiny vans, and even got them mailed. I can spend hours just picking colors for the simplest of graphics work, so it was slow going. Hopefully, they’ll use some of the designs and send pictures back.

As I was driving home from the post office, I approached a pretty normal looking older guy sitting by himself on a on a bench. If I had the windows up as I approached, I never would’ve heard him yelling to the seagulls about not having any cigars and other unrelated matters.

Friday
I read Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson. It was neither good nor bad.

Saturday
I tried to build a crystal radio and failed oh so miserably.
I washed my car in the rain because it needed it so badly.
I walked for 4 hours looking at houses around town.
I ate a wrap that tasted good, but made my ear and jaw hurt.

Sunday
Slow roll to Hyannis and walked around.
I bought a bunch of dollar store crap and the Zeke’s Dirty Sanchez, which is 17 songs and 21 minutes of pure punk bliss.

Monday
3 hours and 8 miles of walking
Attended an open house and answered more questions about my car than I had about the house
Saw a for sale by owner on a house, and stopped to ask the guy how much it was. He quoted me a range of $540,000 to $3 million. When pressed if he had any idea of a range that he might set, he said that “he had to be reasonable” but I could have it tomorrow for a cool million. I told him that he should sell it to me in the next 2 weeks for $25,000 before it accidentally burns the fuck down. Ok I didn’t say that, but he was a fucking prick. All I can hope for is that he waits too long and the market tanks on him…which doesn’t look like an impossibility these days.

I may not have any kids or any blood nieces and nephews, but I’ll be damned if little Hailey Cormier grows up wearing those weird European sneakers that American kids with bad haircuts wear. Not her. No way. From birth until she’s 3 months, she be rocking the Vans like her daddy and adopted American uncle. Unlike, said uncle, she’ll be cool long before she can say even say the word.

Now, if I could only take the time to finish her tiny Black Sabbath t-shirt…

Today, I took a three hour walk in the rain before the GF had to run off and babysit. During the walk, a guy popped up out of the marsh with a pony tail and a trash bag and said “Do you want to help us clean up the marsh?”

My thoughts on the subject were as follows: 1. Get Fucked. 2. Does it come with a blowjob, pony tail boy? 3. How ’bout I just give you $5 and you work over time.

These responses were buried with a smile and a nice, “Not today, thanks!” as we walked off in the rain.

That led me to say something to the GF like, see this is what I mean. I see the value of community, but it’s not what I’m all about. I want people to like me, of course, but I want them to just get the fuck away from me. I’m relatively misanthropic, yet I feel the need to provide people with something to make their lives easier. I’d like to help, but I don’t want to hang out with people I don’t know, knee-deep in shit cleaning out a marsh, I don’t give a fuck about whipporwills, and if you stand within 3 feet of me, I’m going on the defensive. I’d rather be the guy who figures out a way to hook you up with free, legal internet access, or builds a community radio station. I like being that guy sitting in the DJ booth. You smile and wave, I smile and wave, and a big sheet of sound proof glass keeps us apart. That’s the way, uh huh uh huh, I like it, uh huh uh huh.”

A very social and sensitive type, she said, “I really don’t think I understand you at all.”

All I could reply with was, “Opposites attract, baby. Opposites attract.”

Bad: Yak Shaving
Yak Shaving: Any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real problem you’re working on.

For example: You need patch your server. One of the patch’s requirements is that you upgrade to a new version of some application. The application upgrade requires that you upgrade your video card, which requires that you go to the store. The trip to the store requires that you get gas, and that requires finding your wallet. Finding your wallet means that you have to clean your apartment, which requires that you fix the belt on the vacuum, which requires finding that tiny screwdriver set…

I have been doing this at work for 3 days with limited time and even more limited success.

Good: New Baby
Today, somewhere in or around Eskistuna, Sweden, Jay and his beautiful Swedish wife, Jenny just had a baby girl today. I am slated with the task of buying the baby tiny, little Vans, and making her tiny, little, pink Slayer T-shirts.

Points to ponder: 1.) American maternity leave is 13 weeks. Swedish maternity leave is 96. 2.) They say that children are payback for all the stupid things you’ve done. 3.) The mother walked 4 miles a day throughout the pregnancy. 4.) The baby is yet unnamed, meaning that there still is a chance for the names Mercedes, Porsche, Jasmine, Skyler, Tyler, and Jonathena.

Every day, on the way home from work I pass an auction house. On Mondays, there is a 67% chance that I will have to either slam on the brakes or swerve around the brain-dead morons who prefer to spend a larger portion of what little attention they have on the items on the lawn of the auction house than on the traffic on the road. Usually, I get slightly irritated and decently exhilarated testing the limits of my cars braking and handling abilities.

Today, I was completely sucked in with the rest of them. While passing the auction house at a healthy 35, out of the corner of my eye, I swear that I saw a dismantled pinball machine lying in the grass. Visualize, if you will, one of those movies where a woman loses her husband and she thinks she hears his ghost in the house. You know, the ones where she gets all hopeful and confused at the same time and says something like, “Jimmy? Jimmy, is that you?” Now imagine me with that same tone and expression, and actually saying aloud, “Gor-Gar? Gor-Gar?”

At a time when I wore work boots full time and my hair in what is now affectionately known as a mullet, one of my friends had, in his basement, a pinball machine. As one of the coolest things that a kid could possibly have in his house, it occupied a serious amount of time for us in that pre-18, pre-car period where getting some junk food and playing pinball was the norm. If one of your friends has his own pinball machine, that’s pretty cool in itself, but this one was beyond cool. This pinball machine was GorGar. Not only did it have scantily clad amazons and skulls all over it, but GorGar was a giant Devil, which really fit in nicely with the whole Led zeppelin / Judas Priest /work boots / mullet theme of my youth. Oh, and to make him cooler? He talked. Fucking talked! Back in those days, this was huge. His devil voice would announce “GORGAR! BEAT! ME!” at the start of every game. Fuck Pong. Fuck Hockey. Fuck Squash, tennis, NoFriendo, and you too, Sega. GorGar was the new sheriff in town, and that sheriff not only inherently liked to listen to Judas Priest, but he talked to us on our level.

And all those good memories with Gor-Gar that were once locked away in some corner of my brain came flooding back in a two second period, completely disrupting my ability to drive, leaving me in good company with the other morons on the road.

As I drove away, I began to think that there was no way that it could’ve been GorGar on the basis of several irrational points: 1.) Because I had only seen one GorGar machine, there must’ve been only one GorGar machine ever produced in Massachusetts and quite possibly the United States, and 2.) Because Gorgar obviously had Satanic power, there was no way GorGar could break, AND 3.) There is no way that someone would sell GorGar in perfect working condition in an auction. Perfectly logical. I was in a full on coma for the rest of the ride home, dreaming of triumphantly out-bidding everyone for GorGar, setting it up in my apartment, and tracking down all my old friends and tricking them into coming over with something inanely grown-up for some GorGar and Judas Priest.

Thanks for the memories Gor-Gar. Hopefully, you have better friends than me. I don’t write. I don’t call. I don’t put on a copy of Judas Priest: Live and live after midnight with you anymore. I barely even remembered that you existed.

Feel the Power that is GorGar

I think the whole black smoke white smoke thing is pretty cool, but I really wish for the sake of ratings that papal elections had followed a more “Survivor” style voting system, where each cardinal was voted out of conclave one at a time until there was only one cardinal left: The Papal Survivor.

I can picture the cardinals approaching the camera and nervously looking around before holding up the piece of paper showing who they were voting out and saying their piece. Just like Survivor, you know the voting would get nasty toward the end…

“I’m voting off Bennito. Three words: Pope Michael Jackson.”

“Ingatius should be gone. He makes peanut butter sandwiches with the freakin’ BODY OF CHRIST when the kitchen runs out of Ritzes. I’m not even Catholic and I know that’s wrong. Oh Fuck. I mean Oh Fuck, my son. Oh, Double Fuck. Nevermind, I’ll just let myself out.”

“I voted off Giovani. I’m not directly saying that he is swiping alter boys from the storage pantry, but his robe is pretty friggin’ billowy…”

“Buh Bye, Claudio. I mean I’m a cardinal that likes to party, but Claudio lost our last team challenge because he hits the incense way too hard. Plus, he’s always talking about turning the Vatican into ‘the world’s most giant bong’ which makes me pretty goddamned nervous.”

“I admit that after 2000 years we should be able to look back on all this and laugh, but I’m skeptical that the Christian world is ready to accept a Pope Pontius.”

“Gregory should be voted off. I know for a fact that he doesn’t fit the suit.”

“I voted off Godfried. I mean the guy has no idea that we are one of the richest corporations in the world, and WE call the shots. Plus, he still believes in god, which is just plain sill…whoops. Time to poison the camera man.”

Oral
Today, I got my teeth cleaned, and it took over an hour because I had a really nice talk with a 48 year old hygenist who had her husband leave her after being married through 25 years and 2 kids.

I didn’t know this hygenist before today, she seemed completely stable, and you really have no idea how many people open up to me with their life stories for no reason whatsoever.

I also found out that I grind my teeth enough to have worn them down to nubs, and how Sensodyne works.

Manual
Him: Hey, so how’d the tests go?
Her: Everything looks perfect.
Him: Did your mom go with you?
Her: Yea she’s right here.
Him: So, if someday we weren’t able to have kids, I’d have to go get m’ boys tested, then.
Her: We don’t need to worry about that, right now.
Him: Well, do you think your Mom will come along if I have to go in for testing?
Her: [muffled talking] She says she’ll hold your hand.
Him: [Silence]
Her: [Silence]
Him: I hope she means either before or after.
Her: She really has no idea what she just said.

Today is my birthday. If you want to make me feel cool, wish me well via e-mail (link on left). Cool points are doubled if send one and have never actually met me, and tripled for female nudist exhibitionists living outside of North America.

Cool Points have no cash value and canot be redeemed for cash and/or prizes, hitherto, wheretofor, subgum omnibus.

Someone came up to my desk today and asked

Do you ever write anymore?

And I knew exactly what he meant. I don’t. I crank out these retarded little movie reviews that are as boring to read as they are to write, but make me feel like I’ve written something. I haven’t, and I’m wasting both your and my time. And I think I may know why.

Last week, even though Friday was a holiday, I still managed to put in 45 hours, and it’s getting to be the norm. I know other people do that sort of time standing on their heads, but I don’t. I’ve worked nearly every weekend, never eat lunch, and rarely get out of work on time. By the time I get home, I really don’t give enough of a shit about anything to move my ass out from in front of the idiot box, nevermind getting my mind clear enough to sit down and pour something coherent out.

I suppose if all of our jobs were these wondrous hours where we dedicated ourselves to projects that bring out the best in us and the world, rather than just whoring ourselves, selling the only commodity that giant corporations haven’t figured out how to undersell us on (our labor), then when we got home, we wouldn’t even need to spend time unwinding, or shutting down our brains. We could scrutinize our time, and not be faced with the reality that for a good portion of our time, we’re completely wasting our lives (You can accuse me of being overly dramatic on this if you can think back to the last meeting that you were in, and tell me that you couldn’t have thought of a better way to spend your time.) And even when I look at a maximum lifetime of 100 years, it just doesn’t seem like enough time to figure things out, nevermind get anything done.

And this week, this has been bothering me. It’s not just the job. It’s everything: The TV and the radio always seem to be on, derailing any ability that I have to sit and think clearly. I’m not sure if I’m living the life that I want to lead, and I don’t know if the life that I want to lead is made up of my own desires or desires manufactured from a well-targeted marketing scheme. And I really have this nagging feeling that I will never be president.

Today, as if timing were everything, a friend asked me if I could’ve be doing anything at that moment, what would it have been? Because I had just completely wasted 2 hours in a meeting trying to listen to a very knowledeable security expert speak while an audience member consistently derailed his presentation by trying to make themselves the focus of the meeting, and I had messages from two local, and two global sites that needed my help to get them back on track, all while trying to keep my own corporate-wide initiatives moving along, I went just the slightest bit

blank.

I imagine that the purpose of the question was to unconsciously unleash the direction of my true calling in life, but all it did was provide me with an image of myself laying on my back, on the floor in my apartment, simply listening to myself breathe.

And if that is the best dream that I can muster, then something is wrong. Laying on my back should be some sort of recovery from climbing Everest, not the Everest itself.

Today, I returned to the gym after two months away. Returning to the gym after a long stint of inactivity is always dificult for me, mostly because I have to wait for several women to finish their workouts to get at the weights that I need to complete mine.

In a matter of weeks, I will surely graduate into much more macho purple dumbbells.

Bad Brains I
Last night I dreamed that my forearm was achy so I slid all the meat off only to find that part of my bone was made of rock candy. It seemed to be rotting, so I broke it off and slid the meat back on to the good portion of the bone. I think I was in a bowling alley.

The only thing that seemed to concern me about the situation was that the meat on my arm was no longer very even and I wasn’t sure if I should stitch it up or just leave it as it was.

Jon.Virus.b
After being told of increased IRC traffic on our network, I set out to try to figure out what was wrong. I tracked the issue to a file called SecureAntiVirus.exe that held port 6667 open on the infected machines. As McAfee had no pattern file to detect the virus available, I submitted the file to them for review.

Normally, if McAfee knows about the virus but hasn’t included it in a pattern file, they return a previously created pattern file within 5 minutes. For the file that I sent, it took them about 45 minutes, making me think that I might have been the first person to submit the file to them. I’m not saying that I’m the first person in the world to discover this infection, but it seems likely that I was the first to submit it to McAfee. This may or may not be true, but this virus description page didn’t exist before my submission. Because it’s only the second unknown virus that I’ve “discovered,” I’m taking it.

It’s boring, but who cares: W32/Spybot.worm.gen.f

Bad Brains II
Even though my job has kept me very busy over the last week, throwing problems at me that were taking days of research to resolve, I find myself overly tired, but not disgruntled. After dealing with two particularly trying issues simultaneously, I found myself deep in thought. In a brief, but very serious moment, I thought,

“This would all work out faster if I just had two brains.”

When you view yourself as needing a processor upgrade, you might need a little time away from the computer.

Shoes…
After going to dinner and being seated by an attractively compact, Sarah Jessica Parker-esque hostess that looked more like she belonged more in NY than the small town that we were in, I felt the need to mention her to my GF. I could only describe her as “interesting, but a woman who probably really likes boots.”

Then, thinking that I was conveying my image of the woman as some leather-bound, sex-starved, cat woman in boots, I had to make sure she understood my interpretation by sputteringly adding, “You know, like $400 shoes. High maintenance. Hidden Costs.”

She understood my original assessment without the explanation.

And Boots
Ladies, when you look in the mirror admiring those special black pants that come to mid-calf and only hint at your partially hidden, tall, black boots, you may think “De-licious.”

But, when you walk by a table full of geeks, your unnerving resemblance to Captain Kirk will completely overshadow any sexiness that you may have tried for.

A week of a solid vacation in Hawaii will wipe out any stress that may have accumulated over the past few months. On one’s first day back, one might briefly entertain the idea that one doesn’t belong in the basement before being distracted by the accumulated workload. After nearly an hour of unconsciously dribbling coffee down one’s shirt, one knows that he does.

But now, I’m a nerd that hiked for 5 hours just to stand 2 feet away from 2000 degree lava. And accidentally cut my hand and bled all over it.

I may have superpowers now, but I’m not sure. I’ll know more when my LavaMan Super Suit is finished.

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.

On Sunday, I ran into a ex-coworker that I had sat next to for a number of years. She had left our company to raise her two children about four years ago, and I hadn’t seen her since. Even though we had a good working rapport and sat side by side for a number of years, the difference between a serious nerd and a stay at home mom quickly became very apparent, as the conversation dried up in a mere 10 minutes. I really wanted to talk more, but there was really nothing left to talk about. Time had dried up all of our common ground.

My favorite moment during the conversation came when I was introduced to the woman’s four year old son. When asked if he would say “hello” to me, he smilingly blurted,

“Hello, dick nose.”

In the movie, Garden State, one of the main characters says to the other, “You gotta hear this one song. It’ll change your life.” That song is from the Shin’s Oh, Inverted World, which I’ve been slowly growing into over the last few days. I wouldn’t say the album is life changing, but it has put me into a strangely nostalgic mindset. Somehow, it’s made me step back and see that, for years now, I’ve been living like I’m an old man.

I care about my dead career, my car, taping TV, and a bunch of other thoroughly aimless bullshit that, if left unchecked, will eat enough years to leave me looking back and my life with nothing more to say than, “What the fuck did I do.

It wasn’t always like this.

There was a time when everyone I knew would drop by each other’s apartments with no time table nor plans to speak of. We would end up watching crappy TV together, and inevitably either stay too long or fall asleep right on each other’s floors. There was always a stream of people in and out of wherever we were, and there was always nothing going on in a number of places.

Now, it seems that the apartments have turned to houses, and everyone has grown into adults. Phone calls that used to be made on the road simply to establish where everyone was, now they need to be made 3 days in advance and with a purpose and definite timetable to frame any and all plans. We used to pick each other up and drive together. When was the last time that you picked someone up to go somewhere? When was the last time that you had four people in a car that weren’t either children or another couple?

Don’t ask me, because I couldn’t tell you. I can’t even remember the last time I called anyone just to hang out without including a meal, or the last time someone dropped by unannounced, nevermind someone falling asleep on my floor. I have no idea when the last time I went to a full-on house party was, or the last time that someone wanted to aimlessly spend time with me without plans or time limits purely for the company.

Maybe that’s what growing old is all about. Maybe it truly is about loss. Maybe it’s about losing interest, and having others lose interest in you.

Then again, maybe I should throw the Shins out the window and put the Slayer back in the player.

I’m getting a big, blue fucking mowhawk. Then, I’m coming to your house during the dinner hour.

Ok. Not really. My career is dead enough. I can’t believe that I now use career as an excuse for not doing stupid things.

Shit. Save yourselves.

Most towns in Massachusetts are just beginning to get the snow removal process underway after this week’s storms. Consequently, pedestrians’ only option is to walk icy paths between three foot snow banks.

While walking back to the car after dinner with Joey and the GF, I think I slid out of control two or three times in the mere one block it took to reach the front of Club 58. Thanks to Massachusetts smoking bans in restaurants, there were three fairly typical town-ettes standing outside enjoying their cigarettes in the cold.

For maximum comedic effect, I couldn’t have timed it better, because just as I got within arms length of them, I took what we refer to in the area as a major digga (explanation for non-townies). I’ve never claimed to have been suave, and I’ve been tripping over my own feet since a gangly 12 years old. Instead of developing a system to stop the root cause of the problem, my brain has developed a method of dealing with the aftermath. It ignores the things that make me constantly trip, but like a cat, it orders my body parts into a major flailing production in the air that results in a safe and a perfect landing. I never seem to hit the ground. It’s a gift.

Anyway, I have no idea what I did when I hit the ice in front of Club 58, but I know I twisted 180 degrees to land on my gloves almost in a push-up 10 inches from the smokers.

“SHUT UP!” one yelled (why they yell shut up, I’ll never understand) and pointing to one of her nodding companions said, “She just slipped in the same spot like 2 minutes ago!” Then, the “Areyouok?Areyouok?’s arrived and receded like a crashing wave. Now, I swear that normally I am a pretty quick-witted wise ass, but unfortunately, I think my brain’s fall control mechanism must’ve completely sucked all the neurons from the wit center of my brain. All I could think of while on my hands was the Culture Club song:

I’ll tumble for ya, I’ll tumble for ya…

Shit. Falling is not embarrassing. Having the best witty thing that you can think of to make light of the situation be a based on a 20 year old song by a fucking drag queen that that none of these kids would even remember, nevermind appreciate: Now that’s embarrassing. Upon further reflection, the remark probably would’ve sucked even 20 years ago. Oh, the horror. I just swallowed a tall glass of shut the fuck up and got up and said,

“I’m fine. Thanks. No really. I’m fine.”

It was the best I could do. The GF, in her nurturing nature, started in with questions about my ankle surely being twisted because of the 180 degree turn, and the townies were exchanging huddled smiles and cackling about how crazy the fall was, as I merely stood up, composed myself, and continued on my way to the car.

Five feet away stood two townie guys barely in their early 20’s discussing the fall in cool, quiet tones that are only appropriate for 22 year olds and Clint Eastwood movies. As I passed, I had a moment of cool when one quietly said,

“Dude, that was an awesome fall.”

Which I ruined completely by opening my big, fat mouth for the first time with:

“I fall all the time. I’m like a falling ninja.”

I didn’t look back for a reaction. I just winced and walked on. Only if I’d been wearing a “Caution: Falling Ninja” T-shirt could I have been less cool.

I suddenly realized that I have been writing 4-5 times a week in this blog for over 3 years now. I probably should go back and fix all the crappy grammar and confusing sentence structure, but I have this impression in my head that my back posts are wonderfully amusing and witty. Like watching a movie as an adult that you loved as a kid, I’m afraid that the second look may not live up to the eloquent prose I remember it to be.

Truthful news flash: I’m a bad speller, and I forgo the rules of grammar often enough to know that going back to edit a bunch of posts that only I read is as big a waste of time as revamping the crappy colors and structure of the site itself. Time is scarce and needs to be dedicated to loftier projects.

Like becoming the best street racer in the underground before the GF gets home. Word.

What does a man do when he has 2 weeks off from work?

Even though he braces for Xmas, he learns a boat load of Xmas songs on the guitar to impress his GF. He unfortunately plays them in the “Wait. Oops. That was wrong. Hold on. Oh, Fuck it I’m playing them Heavy metal” quality that only he can muster.

He doesn’t get up before 9, he wears mostly nylon sweatpants, and bedhead replaces hair gel as the style of the times. Showering on a daily basis becomes more of a suggestion than a mandate, and later more of a crap shoot. This policy is later revised when he smells food and realizes that he’s the only one in the room and the stove is off.

He treats Mr. DVD Player like Tommy Chong with a messenger bag full of Acapulco gold, while completely snubbing his closest compadres, Mr. PC, and Mr. Playstation. Neither see a volt of power, and he doesn’t care.

He watches at least 20 episodes of Jerry Springer to teach him perspective: sitting in an apartment in Hull in sweatpants is much better than being on a stage with a mullet getting slapped by the enormously obese transvestite who is humping both your sister and your momma.

He also watches a few episodes of Maury Povitch, which teaches him math: If a woman needs to test 15-20 men who they are “sure” they had sex with on the week they got pregnant, on average, said woman is humping like a thousand cocks a year.

He embarks on a stupid, expensive technical project just because he has the time and some spare cash. Once it’s done he stares at it and realizes that the digital video recorder he built only gets 20 channels to tape from because he will not spend the extra $45 that Comcast demands to release their better channels to him.

He cooks ham, bagel and egg sandwiches, tangerine chicken, and a fully stuffed duck. He makes the stuffing by not really following 2 recipes at the same time, and is amazed at how good it comes out.

He flips the gym the bird, as well as any exercise that doesn’t involve eating or nudity.

While normally averaging more than 1 migraine a week, he gets 0 over the whole vacation.

He swears to his beard that he’s never going back to work, and then accidentally shaves a good portion of it off, nullifying the pledge.

…All allowing him to embark on the path to becoming more human, less cube farm robot like no 1 week vacation ever could.

Maybe it’s because it’s 18 degrees out with a 4 degree windchill making it cold enough that two minutes outside make my pants feel ice cold when they touch my knees. Maybe it’s that it’s the Christmas season, and I haven’t gotten into the swing of it one bit. Maybe it’s that all the gift giving creativity that I could muster this year bought a whole load of gift cards, receipts and certificates. Maybe it’s that I need a vacation, but planning it leaves me staring at the computer screen for hours at a time. Maybe it’s going to work before the sun goes up and leaving after it goes down. Maybe it’s reading a million blogs in blogexplosion about cute people with cute stories about their cute kids. Maybe it’s my lack of direction, ambition, and calling. Maybe it’s that I can’t find a single valid source of my frustration. Maybe it’s a lack of sleep or this headache.

But, I can say with certainty that I have not been in the mood to write anything.

Working most of the day and part of the night on server upgrades has left me little room for original thought, and relatively less aware of my surroundings (read comatose), but I did notice 2 things while at the gym today:

1. If I finish a set and forget to start counting the 60 seconds to the next one, I always seem to start my count at 13. I don’t know why, but I always do.
2. In the gym there is a large banner advertising tanning. I am not one to go tanning, so I subconsciously give tanning advertisements as much attention as I give banner ads on the web. Today, though, while walking by the banner for the hundred-thousandth time, I somehow noticed “Swedish Beauty” in large cursive letters on the bottom. Because my brain caught this as a contradiction to the very heart of tanning, I stood there for a minute or two just staring up at it trying parse the exception out. All I could come up with is that people who think it’s perfectly safe to go tanning are probably the same people who believe that the Swedish get really, really tan up there near the arctic circle. They also probably believe in Santa, Jesus, and the Easter Bunny. Then, I just stood there staring and thinking of bunnies until I realized that I was probably blocking the hall and people wanted to get by. Thanks, work.

Note: I’ve been to Sweden a couple of times, and I can say with authority that the Swedes are some of the biggest honkies in the world (in size, color, and fashion).

Blog Whore
I’m a big, fat blog whore. It’s true. I signed up for BlogExplosion to drive traffic to my blog. For every 2 blogs I read, 1 person will read mine.

I used to think that what I had here was pretty amusing, but after reading hundreds and hundreds of blogs, I can’t see how anything here of interest to people in mainstream America. I mean the main purpose of signing up for a service to drive traffic to your site is either to spread a message that you think is important or to sell people Viagra. As I have no Viagra to sell, by signing up I have stated that my site is worth reading.

And to me, that’s a fucking hefty statement, because I really don’t have a message that needs spreading.

While I sit here thinking about the hundreds of blogs that I’ve surfed in the last few days, I can’t see how any of the people on BlogExplosion (and by extension mainstream America) would be the least bit interested in anything I have to say. For what I can tell, BlogExplosion people are interested in 1.) Creating advertisements that masquerade as blogs, 2.) The joys of being a mommy, 3.) The joys of being a Mommy to cats, 4.) The antics of Mr. Bojangles their dog, and 5.) Bush sucks.

I have nothing to say on these subjects, and those people had full blogs about the crap. I mean not only do they maintain full blogs about Mr. Bojangles, including whimsical items like pictures of him wearing a little Santa hat while eating at the table, but they think that mainstream America needs to know about it.

And maybe they do.

But, if they need to know about that stuff, I can’t see what they could possibly find here. A better question is “Why I am trying to get them here?”

I feel like I’m ringing a bell in the middle of a Wal-Mart without a single sparkly kitty sweater to sell.

Corporate Whore
I’ve put in countless hours this weekend on a 16,000 machine upgrade. It’s been 2 days and it’s still fucking going on. Sometimes, I hate work.

An engineer, a lawyer, and a salesman walk into the Outback Steakhouse with me in tow (sounds a bit like the start of a joke, doesn’t it?). I think I figured out why I don’t go to the Outback (besides the fact that I don’t eat steak): Despite the Aussie shirts, decorations, and big, semi-large Crocodile Dundee knives in the bread, I can’t get into the whole corporate packaged “ooh, let’s pretend your in Australia” thing.

See, if I want a chicken sandwich and a fries, that’s what I want to ask for. Asking for a “Kookabura Burger” with a side of “Dingaroo Chips” is not something that I think makes dinner any more fun. All it does is force me to translate “chicken sandwich” to corporate theme restaurant-ese, and force the waitress to translate that bull back into “chicken sandwich” before putting the order in to the kitchen.

Now, does making people order a “ridgydidgy jilleroo burger” make eating a chicken sandwich so much more exotic and exciting for middle America that the rest of us have to put up with it, or is there really something in a name? For me, it not only does not add to my dining experience, but I find to be a big, fat pain in the ass that seems to benefit no one but the corporate marketing idiots who get to jerk each other off over how well their new chicken sandwich name did with the middle American focus group. High five. High fuckin’ five.

If they really want me to get into the whole theme of the place, it’s going to take more than stupid sandwich names. It’s going to take releasing either hungry dingos or an Outback Jack / Hacksaw Jim Duggan tag team on them uggy twisty beaks in marketing, AND letting me freely huck the boomerangs around when I sneak them off the wall.

Dingos.

Played 2 million hours of GTA:SA, watched 5 movies, attended 2 birthday parties and a confirmation, and averaged nearly 2 episodes of Jerry Springer per day.

Movies
Shrek 2: Good story, good animation, and it’s a movie for kids. Thumbs up. B.
Mona Lisa Smile: Oh look, my name is Julia Roberts. I’m in a movie. There are no guns. C
Incredibles: Amaaaaaazing animation, sub-par story. Although I wanted to be, I wasn’t very engaged. B
Elf: I think of every movie starring people from SNL as being a version of Night at the Roxbury. I wanted to hate it and ended up laughing my ass off at the stupid humor. A-
Bad Boys: Bad Boys II is one of my favorites. This one is a version of 48 hours with one less white guy. C

Good and Bad
On the way to work today, my stomach started making some crazy gurgling noises. Although odd, I dismissed it. As a result, I spent the first half of my first hour there in the bathroom and using the Lord’s name in vain.

Needless to say, I went home. It seemed like bad food, but I don’t think that Cherios go bad. I now chalk it up to some sort of bug.

The only good thing I got out of the day was watching the best episode of Jerry Springer that I have ever seen. There was a woman with crazy eyes that wanted her old BF back b/c they had a kid together. Unfortunately, the BF was now living with the girl’s cousin. The two girls beat the crap out of each other for a spell. The girl’s pregnant sister then came out and said that her baby may be the old BF’s. The original girl full-on whacks the dude a couple of times so hard that they drew “Oh snap, Jaiiry,” right out of me. Then, the pregnant girl’s BF showed up, thinking that it was his kid until told otherwise. The dudes then fought for a while. Then, the original girl’s momma comes on the scene, and we found out that the dude slept with her, too. At that point the cousin and the momma start fighting. And these were not the typical, fat slap fights on Springer. These were hair pulling, tattoo sporting, trailer mammas with crazy eyes and blood lust fighting for the right to reproduce with one crazy trailer dude.

Usually on Springer there are 3 mini-episodes per show. This one was so good that it filled up the entire hour and made me forget my stomach for the entire time. I wish I had Tivo’d it. Actually, I wished I had a Tivo just to Tivo it. (Episode S110804)

Today, at 32 years old, while trying to fix a dry contact, I discovered tiny holes in my lower eyelids. I had no idea what they were, and later discovered that they are tear ducts. Imagine that? At 32 years old I discovered a very basic body part. I always thought that tear ducts were the little pink things in the corners of my eyes. I had no idea.

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.