Even though it has 88,000 residents, I’ve always thought of Quincy as a small town. I never really thought of it as being a city.

With 11,000 residents, I think of Hull as a town, but not a small one. It’s hard for me to think of a town as a small town when there are bikers everywhere and the streets are always teeming with people.

Yesterday, as we were coming out of the local market, we saw a couple of people standing on the sidewalk. One was an old man holding a hand painted sign saying “We are proud of you.” He was old enough to be leaning on a cane, wearing clothes that were so far out of style that a teenager would be begging for them, and uninterested enough in holding the sign that I didn’t have to stretch to picture him saying, “Ah fuck this. The game is on.” and hobbling off.

Near the man was a middle-aged woman with a giant camera around her neck wearing stretch pants, making her look like Mrs. Potato Head on vacation. She split her attention between getting the old man to hold up his sign and looking expectantly down the road for whatever was coming.

Trying to figure out their story, we pulled out of the market. Not 100 feet down the road, coming in the other direction was a police motorcycle, a cruiser, and a fire truck, all flashing their lights and blaring their sirens. Behind them was a yellow bus and a line of cars all honking like mad. Given the amount of noise, we thought that some veterans must’ve come home or something.

Upon getting closer, we found out that Hull High School won its first-ever Division 3 South baseball title over its rival Abington.

Now, I ask you: Where other than a small town do they bust out a fire engine to celebrate a high school division 3 baseball victory?

I thought it was pretty fucking cool.

Know what’s nice? Introducing my GF into a local joint where I’m somewhat of a regular and having the staff give me the thumbs up when she isn’t looking.

Confusion
I spent 15 minutes with one woman discussing how much she enjoyed the gym, and another 15 minutes trying to help motivate another woman to join a gym as she was talking about how miserable she was with her size. I explained that it was a very simple thing to join, and the hardest part is actually joining. I then spent 15 minutes wondering what the hell the conversation was about after finding out that woman #2 has belonged to a gym for the past five months, but doesn’t like to go.

I’m so confused.

Nice
I find that people like to run things by me. Why, I don’t know. In these situations, I really try not to use the words “you should,” and try to express opinions in the form of “I would do this, but I am not you.” I try to tell people that their decisions are their own, and that they should make the decisions that make them happy, and everyone else’s opinion and $4.75 will rent them a movie.

And people seem to take to this. In my opinion, I haven’t really said anything. I haven’t really offered an opinion, yet it seems to the asker that I’ve offered a great one. Maybe it’s because most people will tell you what you should or must do, as if the decision that they have made for you is not only the correct one, but is the decision that they would make for themselves if they were in your shoes.

I try not to say anything. Nothing. In my mind, when someone is looking for advice, they are just looking to confirm an opinion that they already hold. So, why fight them on it? All I try to tell them is that I am not them, their decisions are their own, and whatever they choose is for the best.

And people come back…

Not Nice
Co-worker: How you doin’, Jon?
Jon: Good. How you doin?
Co-worker: You don’t really want the answer do you?
Jon: Nope. You didn’t really want that answer did you?

Desires vs. Reality
I went to see a house today that I thought was underpriced, and I was dying to get into. After sitting and waiting for the realtor for a few minutes we called to find out that the house that was really for sale was the crap hole down the street.

Honest mistake. They were both brick and I am a detail oriented something or other.

Walk
On a walk with my GF, I was confronted with a girl whose boobs were so disproportionate to her body, that I became literally confused by the sight of them. I didn’t realize the confusion until said confusion was hitherto pointed out by said GF whereto-for. She argued that I was flustered by chesty women. I argued that if the woman were disproportionately tall (or short), had a disproportionately large ass, or disproportionately large eyes, etc. I would’ve done the same.

As I don’t consider myself a breast man, I think this argument is valid, but the things were in the higher alphabetical letters on a 3 lb. woman with amazing posture, so I can’t be held responsible in any case.

All I wanted was shoes and jeans. I got the shoes (same brand/style 4 years running) and the sneakers (Vans, 2 years running), but failed to find jeans that weren’t from 1973. They are all faded and/or bellbottomed, and being that I am neither young enough to find them stylish, nor homeless enough to find them clean, it’s looking like I will have to wait for the 70′s to be over before getting new jeans.

Getcho Hair Did
Sat on the couch watching Springer and Divorce court. It was here that I learned that a “hair do” becomes a “hair done” after it is…uh done(?). The exact sentence was, “She say the won’t have sex wit’ me ’cause she din’ wan’ to mess her hair done.”

>Self-Modifying Games
I looked up “self-modifying” games such as Warthog, Aronu, Dvorak, and Nomic. I printed off a ton of pages to look over, but haven’t had the chance, yet. I did get a chance to look at a bunch of uno variations, but haven’t gotten a chance to play any of them. The GF brought up an interesting point when she asked me why I needed to read rules on how to play “ruleless” games. Damn her logic.

UNO Variation: Backlash
After reading all of this rule modification (and because I am a total nerd), I came up with a simple UNO variation. The basic variation is that if anyone plays a draw 4 card, they have to pick up two cards, three turns later. If the player conveniently forgets to pick up the two cards, and no one catches them, no penalty is assessed. If they are caught, they pick up six. In my mind, it assesses pain for dealing it.

I thought about applying a similar rule to all draw cards played, making anyone who plays a draw card pick up half the value of the draw card 3 turns later, with a penalty for not picking up being double the draw card’s face, but I thought that the variation would be too complicated.

I have not had a chance to test either of these variations.

After a blueberry pancake breakfast at Stars, we decided once again to get on the highway and head North. This time, we only got as far as Cambridge. When we arrived, I convinced the GF not to park in a garage and to make a round to see if there were any spots. While making the second pass around the square, we luckily snagged a great spot in the middle of the square.

I think it was the last weekend for the Harvard kids, as there were orange dumpsters everywhere. In the first one we passed by, there were two Russian guys in it digging deep. One was holding a soup spoon.

We walked down to the river and walked along Memorial drive, which was closed to cars for the day. It’s a great and odd feeling to walk along a main road without hearing the sounds of traffic. While we were walking, two exasperatingly fit young girls ran by, yanking an exasperated, “Bitches!” out of the GF. Her only excuse for the comment was that the women’s legs were as tall as her.

After walking the river, we hit a couple of used record stores. The weather was nice, and made for a very nice day. There the usual crowd of street performers, and interesting faces circulating around them, so we sat for a bit and watched the world pass by.

A couple of women smiled at me, and I thought that I might have a blueberry on my face. The GF confirmed that this was not the case. At one point, when the GF was bent over tying her shoe, I caught a guy trying to get a look down her shirt. His GF caught him too, and gave him heck. I found the whole thing quite amusing. When the GF asked me why I wasn’t angry at the guy, I simply stated that men can’t help themselves. Even though propriety tells us that we shouldn’t stare, we are compelled to do so anyway.

Before we left, I wanted to head up to see my friend’s record store one last time, so I grabbed a Sobe energy drink and headed for the end of the square. There was a time when I couldn’t walk into a record store in Cambridge without recognizing someone, and seeing the “For Sale” sign in the window of my friend’s shop and peeking into the empty interior signaled the end of an era. Harvard Square was for another generation. I was officially a stranger in a strange land. So, we walked down to the car (without jumping into any dumpsters) and headed toward home in search of dinner.

Halfway home, my colon decided that it didn’t like energy drinks. This made for a very sweaty ride, and mandated a pit stop to “freshen up” before dinner. After leaving half my body weight at home, we headed to dinner at Dalat in Hull. Dalat’s food is not bad, but it’s way overpriced. I feel as good eating it as I do if takeout had a $50 surcharge. After dinner, we headed home, and I lost the other half of my body weight while the GF watched the current season of Coupling on the BBC (the 3rd season is available on DVD on 6/1).

All in all, a good day.

Morning
We saw two houses in the morning, both crap holes, both overpriced. One had a really fat, nice dude in it. The other was on pilings, and was full of whisky and shamrock.

Afternoon
After seeing a half-hour commercial from Dollar Bill’s Discount World a couple of weeks ago, I have wanted to go up to New Hampshire to see it. It’s simply a dollar store, but the owner seems to be a corny nut. So, seeing as we had no plans on Saturday, I suggested that we spend the day in New Hampshire or Maine…And if we were going North, we might as well hit Dollar Bill’s on the way, right? Right.

It was as I expected: tons of cheap crap. As a bonus, the nutty owner kept making corny announcements on the P/A System. While I wasn’t smirking over the announcements, I was smirking over the crap.

Without spending more than $20, we got coloring books for the nieces, ping pong paddles for my parents, a pizza pan, two sets of “sports maracas”, a giant gift bag, and two plastic bees on sticks to shove in the GF’s sister’s garden. Oh, and I got a Coke. The items that I passed up included were: shirts with wolves on them, anything with a wizard or indian on it, and an umbrella hat.

Evening
For a couple of hours in the afternoon, we tooled along exploring a little bit of NH, ending up at the GF’s sister’s house. Children are not only fun for making chalk drawings and playing, but I learned that they are just heavy enough to fix any problems by walking on your back.

Gmail
I spent 20 minutes last night trying to figure out a wicked cool gmail account. I was going to stick with my age old ozzyosbourne moniker, but I ended up opting for the simplistic and boring as hell jedyer. As I don’t use 1/2 of the accounts I have, the GF can’t understand why I would want yet another e-mail account. This one comes with 1 gig of free space, so the spammers can spam their little asses off and not make a dent.

More importantly, gmail accounts are generally in short supply ( People are actually e-baying the things), so I feel a little extra geeky.

If you’re looking for one, here’s a little secret for you: Go into your blogger account, and you may see an offer in your main window, as gmail and blogger are google companies.

OpenSSH
I’ve been investigating setting up a VNC connection over SSH to remote control my home machine from work, or maybe to set up secret encrypted tunneling around the city. It doesn’t seem to be too hard, but I need to experiment some more.

Philosophy
I’ve been listening to philosophy lectures on the way to and from work and I’m reading Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground. I want to say that this is some heavy reading and I’m very close to unlocking the secrets of the human mind, but I have to admit that the lectures are basic philosophy 101 and the only reason that I picked Notes from Underground is that it is about one-tenth of the length of any of Dostoevsky’s other works.

So far, I find myself drifting off during the lectures and thinking about sex. I wish I knew why. It’s just like being in college…well, minus beer, cheese steaks, and that funky, meaty dorm smell.

Pekiti Tirsia Kali
As my interest in martial arts has reared its head once again, it was suggested that I look into Pekiti Tirsia Kali, a Filipino martial art that employs not only hand to hand, but knife defenses. Rather than let the urge die like I always do, I decided that I would do something about it, and fired off an e-mail to a Pekiti Tirsia Kali instructor to get some info.

Given the temperament of my youth and my propensity toward street brawling, I always thought that a little martial arts knowledge would be dangerous for me. I was already smacking people around enough with the tactics I knew, and I knew that if I possessed the knowledge to tear out a man’s beating heart and feed it to him, I might actually use it. Then, I’d have to go to jail and be someone’s bitch. And after being someone’s bitch full time via a marriage certificate, I can tell you this has very little appeal.

But now, I’m a sedated old guy. Testosterone raging street brawlers don’t have me on their radars anymore, and the knowledge can’t do me any harm.

So, who knows? Maybe I’ll get involved with martial arts as my new 2 year sport. Hopefully, I will not have to wax cars, paint fences, or sanda the floors. But if I do, the Cobra Ki are going to pay big time.

People’s Republic of Boston
Comrades,

The police will be conducting random ID checks on the MBTA, so please pin your IDs to your lapel to allow the police check your ID “hands free” while they wipe their asses with the Bill of Rights. One of the people near you could be a terrorist, so please, as all the signs tell you on the T, report anyone or anything that looks suspicious to you. Yes, especially that foreign looking dude. He’s not one of us. We’ve determined at the top that it’s ok to just walk over and punch him in the face without justification if you think he may harm someone, so don’t think twice. Or at all. Leave that to us.

When the officers ask you for your license for riding public transportation, please step aside in the name of The Communewealth. Also, try to refrain from explaining the logic that if you had a fucking license you wouldn’t be taking public transportation in the first place. The State is not interested in terrorist catch 22s, and will put you in a detention center for reeducation until your “runaround logic” can be straightened out.

Thank you.

-I. Owen Yubich
Communewealth Chancellor

Two Things…No Six…Wait.

1. If I could channel this search for various types of knowledge into one direction, I could make an employer very happy or myself very rich. I unfortunately, would probably be miserable. It’s the changing scenery that makes me tick.
2. I don’t think I’ll ever buy the car, as it is already a completed project, leaving me without the work and the dream, which are much more entertaining than AWD.
3. I love that Massachusetts is one of the few places in the country where “queah” has not been usurped to mean gay. Heah, it means queah. Always has, always will.
4. In everyone’s townie stable there is a “Sully” and/or a “Fitzy”. They both call you by your first name, “assface.” If not, you’re probably not a townie.
5. People are generally not as smart as you or I. For proof visit a locker room or a bar.
6. If I have to ask you whether you’re aware if you said “Ooh ho ho mama” out loud at work, the woman probably heard you, and is calling HR right now.
7. I love this mediamonkey thing. It really kicks mega super hyper ass. I’m listening to music I had no idea that I had. It’s almost as cool as ninjas. Well, not really. Now, I’ve just gone too far.
8. Fuck, I did two too many.

LandLubber
While driving to work this morning, I passed by a Suburban, a boat trailer, and a 30+ foot boat. The hitch was being attached to the Suburban, and the boat was on its side in the road. There was no TGIF for that guy.

You have to love IM
Today, I got to have two very different conversations with people that I would never expect to have them with. The first was about the dangers and comforts in a polyamorous relationship with someone who had first-hand experience. To say the least, it was not something that I get to hear every day. At worst, I am very, very naive

In my second conversation, I was told by a pregnant woman that a woman’s rack (sic) can jump two sizes during pregnancny. I knew that they swelled a little, but I had no idea that it was that much. As she’s supposedly not showing much, I suggested that she use those suckers to get free popcorn or something. What? Men are dumb.

The things people are willing to tell me amazes me. Privileged communication can make a big difference, especially if unexpected.

9 Grand
With 9000+ MP3s to deal with, I have a hard time categorizing them for playback. Today, I downloaded media Monkey and it’s free. It seems to work ok so far, and has a player, ripper, and multi-tag editor built right in.

It eats the CPU cycles, but I give it a generalized thumbs up. Copies can be grabbed from mediamonkey.com.

Dinner
I ate all the leftovers in the fridge, I smell, and I watched too much TV.

The Square
Yesterday afternoon, I hopped the train into Harvard square to hop a shuttle to the Acura dealership to pick up my car. The train ride was relatively uninteresting as far as both people and smells are concerned, which I suppose is a good thing.

Upon exiting the train station, as always, I walked up the Church Street steps only to find that I had gone up the wrong stairs. I do this every time. I walked down to the pit, where I should’ve come out, and got my bearings for a minute. Harvard square, which once was a place I couldn’t walk two feet without bumping into three people that I knew, was drowned in a sea of unfamiliar faces dressed in all too familiar uniforms.

The punks were still in the pit, exposing their tattoos and hiding their fears. The alternative folks still leaned cooly against walls with both haircuts and fashions chosen from the same flea market. Both camps, while in direct competition for cool, joined in sneering at the neatly dressed, beautiful children of the wealthy yakking on their cell phones as if everyone were an endless string of Nobodies

And there I stood, smack in the middle of it all, a ship without a port, and without a shuttle to the Acura dealer. I plunked myself down on a wall and called Acura for a shuttle. Unfortunately for me, there wasn’t one for an hour. Having nothing to do, and no longer having a single friend in any of the record stores in the area, I headed into a bookstore to stare at books that I would never buy.

In the course of a day an hour can pass me unnoticed, but in that bookstore, I looked at my watch about every 4 minutes as if by checking the time I was helping each individual minute to expire a little faster. After looking at every book in two stores twice, I gave up and headed to wait by the news stand for the shuttle.

People flowed around me like a slowly polluting river until I longed for a bank to scramble up onto. I didn’t find them as amusing or interesting as they found themselves, and I unwillingly started to understand some of the feelings in Sartre’s Nausea. Humanity lost it’s beauty, and I wanted simply to get my car and get the fuck away from all of them.

The Ride
The shuttle driver couldn’t speak English all that well, but not all that badly, either. He was in his twenties, shaved bald, and looked possibly Peruvian, but definitely South American. He provided some words in the conversation, and I filled in the blanks where he stumbled in a story which I really didn’t give half a shit about hearing.

Honestly, if someone wants to talk to me, I’ll listen and try to make the best of the worst conversations if the intentions of the speaker are good. It’s like tolerating bad conversations from good people. Plus, if someone feels better after, great. In a car, you really don’t have much choice without being an a-hole.

Although the guy never knew it, I just wanted to stare out the window.

The Dealer
By the time we got to the dealer, I wished the driver luck and went in to get my car. After paying $1200 to get my car, the ABS light was still on as I drover off. As this was the original reason that the car went in, I wouldn’t describe my condition at that moment as “happy.” I jammed my car into reverse and flew backwards across the parking spot depositing my car where I had just picked it up.

It seems that my service manager had misunderstood what I wanted done on my car and had gone home for the day. As we had talked several times over a few days and the guy has been pretty good about putting my car in working order over the last 8 years, I wasn’t about to make a stink. I just calmly tried to get another service manager to schedule a time for the ABS to be fixed. Even though they had had the car for four days, I figured that there was no real reason to get steamed.

In the five years since my warranty ran out, I have never been offered a loaner when my car has gone in to the dealer. Not once (I was without a car for the previous four days while they worked on it!) It must’ve been my lucky day, as the guy gave me a 2004 Acura TSX to tool around with until my car was ready. That was totally unexpected. I felt great. I felt like I caught a break. I felt like the river had cleaned up a little.

The Review
The TSX is a BMW 325 replacement without the cool look, nice interior, or status that goes along with it. I can’t really fault the car in any way, but if you’re into driving a BMW, and you have 28 large to throw at a car the TSX may interest you.

To me though, the car provided little excitement beyond the first 15 minutes of driving. It’s nice. It is. It has 200 ponies, and leather, and variable suspension, and that automatic/manual transmission thing, and some nice looking headlights, but I couldn’t get past the “sporty grampa” feel of the car. I don’t know. Maybe its me. I can’t really explain why I didn’t like it. The closest I can get is when you walk into a really nice house, but it does nothing for you at all. Everything is there for you to like, but it just doesn’t work for you.

One gripe I do have is that I hated that fucking manual/auto transmission crap. Hated it. There was too little power in auto, and too little control in manual. It actually made me angry. I can tolerate annoying humans for a fair amount of time, but pair me up with a technology that I don’t like, and I have a nutty.

Double plus it’s $28,000! Have you any idea the CIVIC I can build with 28 large? Do you?

I don’t know. Maybe I’m too hahd to please, dood. Time f’some sherbit and some bed.

Saw 5 houses in 2 hours and watched some instructional martial arts videos, none of which I held my interest very long. It’s 55F today, and I’ll be back in work in a matter of hours.

Yay.

Saturday Night’s
Wake up, get the Coolatas, go to the beach for the day, go home and watch the 5th element, eat some sherbert, and go out to dinner with friends.

At 88F, an almost perfect day.

All Right for Fighting
If you go out to dinner with someone and their girlfriend, it’s not a good idea to talk about said person’s past relationships. If you are feeling the need to talk about how fast the courtship was and blah blah blah, save it, unless you are looking to cause a problem. And if you even mention the word “love,” you certainly deserve a swift kick in the ding ding.

Teenage Girls
Hull’s population grows from 10,000 in the winter to 30,000 in the summer. Most of the 20,000 extra summer folk are teenagers. Today, I got to stand in line at Dunky’s with a ton of them.

Oh. My. God. I totally have like zero tolerance for like teenage girls. Totally like zero. Totally. heeeheeeheeeheeeeheeeheee yah like totally. “Can you do me a quick favor and shut the fuck up?” repeated itself in my head for quite some time.

I think I like teenage girls just fine at distance of about 40 yards. From there, tolerance drops in direct proportion with distance.

Foreign Girls
Listening to my friend’s fiance tell the story that she thought the word “prick” meant the same as the word “trick” was funny. Hearing her tell stories of having used the word for some time with clients was funnier. Hearing examples such as, “I’m tired of all your little pricks” was priceless.

PS2
There are many things that you can do with a PS2 if you can load an initial piece of code onto the memory card. That is the problem that I am encountering. Without paying for a modchip or buying additional software, there seems to be no way to do this without seriously taking apart the PS2.

Beardo
A guy walked by me at the gym, and I did a double take at him. The guy looked at me perplexed and asked if I was using a nearby slant board. I told him that I wasn’t but asked, “Didn’t you used to have a beard?” because this guy had a HUGE beard. It was a six month to one year scraggly, mountain man looking thing that had gone missing from his face. At that point the guy took a long pause and looked around. As if I had walked up to Madonna while she was eating dinner, he gave me a “uh yea,” and a face like I was not only some sort of asshole, but that I was really not worth the effort of the answer.

I then said, “It’s funny how we only recognize people here unconsciously, and only if there is a change.”

I don’t think he really cared to think about it. I just did my situps a little further away, and noted not to bother the guy again.

Wang Chung II
I was watching that 70′s show, and Fez started singing “Everybody Wang Chung tonight.” I ran. I ran so far away. I couldn’t get away. Damn Wang Chung to hell.

Get up, go to the gym, go to the beach, go home, laze around and read, go to dinner. Then, crap like a bastard until 1 AM.

So close to a perfect day.

My Shoe! (bbdabbdabddabbdada)
Palatzo seems to think that my right show becoming untied has to do with me crossing my feet under my desk. For a few days I thought he was Sherlock fucking Holmes…until today when I looked down and my right shoe was untied and I had been nowhere near my desk.

Music Plasma
Musicplasma.com. This is an answer to some of my music hunting prayers. You type in a band you like, and it spits out a whole bunch of related bands. It seems to be pretty complete, as it knows the lineage of Kyuss, Entombed, Shadows Fall, Bad Wizard, and Stevie Wonder, but missed Only Living Witness and Roadsaw. The bubbles on there represent how popular each band is within that cluster. This is going on the side links…

How Much You Bench
Took 5 weeks off from the gym. Went back today. Had issues with 155lbs. Shameful.

Distracted
When I got home today, I realized that I forgot to put on deodorant. I don’t think that has ever happened before.

One for Joseph
Last night I had a strange dream. A group of us were going to a meeting for work, but I had no idea who had called it. I thought it was strange that the meeting wasn’t being held in one of our buildings, but in one of those brick schools that were converted to condos as a result of Prop 2 1/2.

As we walked up the stairs to the meeting room, everyone went to the 5th floor, but I kept walking to the 6th. Standing there looking down at them, I realized how creepy it was up there. I also noticed that there seemed to be a seventh floor, but it was pitch dark and looked scarier than the sixth. I commented to the group on this, and they just motioned to me to come down to the door on the 5th floor. So, I did.

The 5th floor door didn’t go into an office, but an apartment. When someone called out, “Hello,” an answer came from the bathroom. As the bathroom door was open, everyone went in, leaving me standing in the foyer. The person that called the meeting was in the tub with their clothes on, and pulled herself up, got out, and greeted the rest of the group.

I thought that it was weird and rude for them to go in there, and turned around to get a look at the apartment. The opposite wall was open to the street like we were on ground level. There, where the wall should been were five trees. I wanted them in a pentacle, so that I could feel surprise, but they were 4 in a line and one apart. And looking down the road, I thought that we were in Dorchester, as it was a city scene with a church with 2 steeples in the distance.

Then, I heard all the people coming out of the bathroom, led by the woman who had called the meeting. When I saw who it was, I was glad to see her, although she didn’t look like herself. She had light blue eyes, and was wearing a black shirt with a white line on the bottom of her collar. Despite having been in the tub two seconds before, she was completely dry. For some reason, I think I was aware that I hadn’t seen her in a long time. Then, with an insider’s glance, she and poked fun at my nose for the benefit of the group, and everyone laughed. I wasn’t angry or embarrassed and then I woke up. It was 3AM.

My first thoughts were “Her eyes are green,” and “I hope I’m not dreaming about her because she’s going to die.”

Interpret that, my Josephs.

The Booth
When I was a DJ in college, I worked at a crappy, low power radio station. As people rarely called in, I used to wonder if anyone was actually listening. Twelve years later, I find myself in a similar position. I feel like I’m still in the booth, but the medium has changed. I think I’ve become some sort of literary DJ.

Reasons
If I walk 30 steps, my right shoe will untie itself. It never happens to the left shoe. I have no idea why.

Multi-Threading
I’ve resolved the Perl multithreading issue that I had a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, the module that I choose to output to Excel with, Win32::OLE, is not compatible with multithreading. So again, I need to find a workaround.

El Auto
I may get the auto back tomorrow.

You know that you shouldn’t be in a church when someone takes your picture just because your presence is a “once and a lifetime” event.

At some point during the christening, the priest asked, “Do you reject Satan and all his works?” I had to bow my head just to keep from laughing. It was at that moment that I burst into flames. I don’t think that it was the laughing. I think that it was the fact that for most of the christening I had been breaking up the church into really slick, upscale apartments in my head. There were columns everywhere.

Well, don’t tell me that the church is closing if you want me to pay attention.

I really should figure out what it takes to be a contractor. Follow your dreams. You can reach your goals. Beefcake. BEEFCAKE!

El Guapo has left the building for another year. November 15-February 22. Shaving 104 to follow.

So the GF wanted to go over to the “fitness center” in the apartment complex today, and I thought that it might be a good idea, as I haven’t been to the gym in a week. The place is maybe 15 x 10 into which is crammed two treadmills, two elliptical machines, two bikes, and one of those all-in-one weight lifting machines. There is also a jumprope, but no room to use it, in case you were wondering.

As you walk in the door, the treadmills are to the right, facing left, and the bikes are to the left, facing the same way. Between them is a narrow path just wide enough to walk through. I think this setup is so that runners can pretend that they’re chasing the guy that stole their bikes, and the bikers can pedal faster to get away from the crazy person chasing them. That’s just my expert opinion, mind you.

Anyway, as we walked in, there were two people on the bikes. They were in their late 50s, and doctorishly eccentric. They were reading magazines and photocopies, which I imagined were medical articles which were as boring to read as their titles were hard to pronounce. The woman wore librarian glasses, and the man had one of those 70′s “I’m playing tennis today” headbands on.

The TVs were off, and with the exception of the whirring of the bikes, the room was dead quiet. Even though the door is 3 feet from the bikes, the bikers never turned to even acknowledge that the door had been opened, nevermind to say, “Hello.” It was weird.

We hopped on the treadmills, and found that we were mouthing things to each other rather than breaking the stern silence imposed by the bikers. Out of nowhere, the man biker yelled “HOW FAST CAN YOU GET THIS THING TO GO?!” to the woman biker, who yelled back “150!!” and starts going absolutely nuts peddling. After thirty or so seconds, the guy yelled, “I THINK I CAN DO 200!!” and peddled hard enough to make his bike shake in three directions. It reminded me of children running through the yard yelling “Look how fast I can run! Look how fast I can run!”

Then, they both settled down, and whirring took control of the silence once again, leaving me wonder if these people were seeking attention, or had no concept that other people existed in the room. Mostly, this complex thought manifested itself in a simple, “What the fuck?” rolling through my head at intervals as irregular as my breathing.

At the one mile marker, the guy that stole my bike seemed to have died, head band and all, and was slumped over his bike. The woman that stole the girlfriend’s bike was doing yoga in front of my treadmill in an attempt to possibly bring his spirit back from the dead. As there is a 3 foot path in front of the treadmills, and mats at the other end of the room, I began my wondering if I truly existed or if this life was merely an illusion. Again this thought process manifested itself in the simple “What the fuck?”

I began staring at the ground, which is rather difficult when running on a treadmill, but was much more satisfying than taxing my brain with the questions that this woman was raising about my existence.

Finally, the biker guy must’ve gotten his heart started again, and the two of them went over to the mats and stuck their asses in the air for a while I stared at the jump rope.

Now, I belong to Gold’s Gym, which is supposedly one of the cheesiest, meat-headed gyms out there, where people are supposed to flex constantly, kiss their biceps and yell “BooYAH!” at regular two minute intervals, while strutting around like peacocks in tiger-striped spandex pants. I’ve seen a couple of people like that there, and they’re big as professional wrestlers with half the fat. As the peacock to human ratio is very low, I find it to be tolerable, and not the least bit uncomfortable. I think if those people want to kiss their biceps and show off, good for them, as there’s probably some people there that might dig it. But, generally to those people, I am not on their radar:

No one is. They are generally entertaining themselves.

Even if I was (which I don’t think I’ve ever been), I’m near them for a maximum of five minutes until my sets carry me across the gym. This is the beauty of the big cheesy gym: There’s no sense of being uncomfortable, as there is anonymity in the crowd, and plenty of room to get out of each other’s way.

To me, it’s ironic.

A couple hours of coding, and I still can’t figure out how to pull the table of contents off of a CD correctly. It’s a problem that I will not solve tonight. Ugh.

Jay
Jay gots a blog now. There ain’t much there, yet.

Money (dah d’dah dum dum dum dah dum)
I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of money as an illusiory store of time (as seen here in Shitty Part II).

Feelings (whoa, whoa whoa)
Today, the air felt like Spring. It took me a few minutes to figure out why. What I came up with was winter is a cold that snaps you in the face like a piece of paper. Spring cold is fluid and surrounds you like a gel pack. I think it has something to do with the level of moisture in the air, which could be related to that feeling that you know it’s going to snow, but you don’t know why.

Infatuation (oowhoa oh)
I have a recent fascination with the botfly. I have no idea why.

(I hate every song in the above titles. Hate ‘em)

Wal-Mart
Nothing curtails my need to breed than a trip to Wal-Mart. Try it some time.

A co-worker came in with a Dyers.org T-shirt on today. Nuttiest thing that I’ve seen. I will never understand people.

No Direction
Today, I drove my parents to the airport, got a filling without novocaine, spent a couple of hours on unsuccessful, unscripted x-mas shopping (i.e. wandering around BestBuy trying not to buy video games), and then sat around wasting time surfing an unsatisfying web until the girlfriend got home. By the time she got home, I think I was subconsciously frustrated, but fighting it off with the thought the choices I make are mine and mine alone.

Then, I dreamt of maggots eating a fresh can dog food.

Oh Boy
I see marriage as trying to contract something which should be a consistent choice and as a way to stabilize something that is, by its very nature, beautifully unpredictable. I can’t say that I’m against marriage, but I can’t say that I’m really for it, either.

In my surfing, I came across nomarriage.com (don’t bother), and honestly became really frustrated with it. If a guy is for or against marriage, usually I can understand some part of his point of view. On the other hand, if a guy who has never been married puts up an entire website on why marriage is bad, blaming virtually all marriage problems on the lack of docility in American women, I have to question not only his motivation, but his view of what a woman should be. Scratch that. I should question why he has a view of what women should be.

Oops. Forget it. Motivation found. Looks like he’s selling a book. Read everything critically, discard advertising, and don’t believe everything that you breathe…

Somehow, I forgot to wash my hair today. I don’t know how I forgot, or why it’s worth a mention. It’s greasy as hell, though.

• Dio – The Very Beast of… (metal): I normally don’t like Dio. Why I bought this is beyond me. It’s cheesy 80′s metal from a 4’8″ metal maniac. And it sucks. Really sucks. For some reason, I needed to have it. C
• Ludacris – Chicken and Beer (rap): I like Luda’s other crap, and the Outkast album was like $18. I’m not paying $18 for a rap CD. This one is typical, fast taking, luda. B
• Beyonce – Dangerously in Love (sissy R&B): If I make fun of anyone’s musical tastes ever again, please remember that I bought this album. This isn’t all that great, I think that I might like it better if I were naked. Clothed: C+, Nude: A-
• Hatebreed – The Rise of Brutality (hardcore): Grunt grunt yell jud jud yell grunt. I have no idea what they’re saying, but they are obviously angry about it. This album makes my face get angry. I like their other album, but this one was cheaper. Honestly, it’s the same thing, but the other album is better. When Will I learn? B+
• Third Eye Blind – Out of the Vein (pop/rock): This is one of those bands that I find uplifting and depressing at the same time. It’s the same crap as the other albums, and it may become as popular with me as I listen to it more. Right now, it’s a solid B.

You can’t be what you were
So you better start being just what you are
You can’t be what you were
Time is now and it’s running out
You can’t be what you were
So you better start living the life
That you’re talking about
You can’t be what you were

-Bad Mouth, Fugazi, 1989

Strangers tend to talk to me a lot. People tend to seek my approval on things that don’t mean anything. I will usually listen as long as they feel like talking, and I’m always surprised that they seek me out, as I still (and may always) see myself as this guy. I find it even more surprising when people try to convince me that I’m not.

Side Note on Halloween:If any of you hot chicks are thinking that you’re going to trick or treat as naughty nurses, leather she-devils, or French maids, please be aware that I will not be allowed to make sex to any of you as my girlfriend has said that it is not allowed. You may just have to send anonymous pictures via e-mail. Sorry.

I ran all over the mall looking for a watch for my Mom that didn’t exist. Her Birthday is tomorrow, and like any good male, all shopping is done 24 hours prior. Saw bladeblogger in one of the stores. We fought. He did official like martial arts crap. I just ran, threw things, and said “Quick! Look over there! I’m serious this time!”

Then, I drove to Kingston to find a game that I thought my Mom would like…Which they didn’t have. Then, I took what gifts I could find home. Then, I took apart 3 PCs and laid their guts on every surface that I could to make myself feel better. Then, I used a diskette as a coaster as a dare to nature. Then, I overclocked one of said crappy PCs to make it slightly less crappy PC. Then, I wrote this crap.

Now, I’m tired.