Author: Dave

Posted on

run over by the spinning wheel


Friends, I told you it would happen… eventually. I just didn’t think it would be so soon. Within two days of putting up all my lovingly crafted Halloween decorations and props, I got jacked. The thieves made of with my best homemade headstone, a 4ft tall one with the nondescript “R.I.P.” carved into it, as well as the $10 “skeleton” thing which was jutting from the earth at its foot. They also tried to steal last year’s crown jewel, the not-cheap-at-all to make “coffin popper.” In their efforts, they detached all the various air hoses and AC wiring to the coffin, and I’m assuming only left it when they realized it weighs well over 100lbs.

Let me just take this time to emphasize just how much I hate getting things stolen from me. For reasons (explained here in detail), being the victim of a pilferer evokes a deep-seeded feeling of violation in me. I get altogether furious and nervous as my brain starts instantly wishing I’d caught the sticky-fingered bastards in the act, I get put off thinking of these ill-willed punks slinking around my house touching my things and all right under my nose as I sleep. I curse the gonads these bandits must have to take the time to step onto my porch and unhook my air hoses, to trace wiring with their fingers to find a plug in the dark and unplug it (if only my extremely unsafe for outdoors 120V wiring would’ve shocked the dicks). I hate the brazenness I imagine them having, and a good bit of that hates stems from the fact that I know for a fact I once possessed the exact same brazenness when committing my teenage deeds.

In fact, this morning I found myself nearly simultaneously thinking, “What gives kids the idea that they can do this kinda thing?” and, “Oh… that’s right, I know exactly what gives them that idea…” Stupid me, getting karmic repayment for the evils of my own youth. And the worst part is, if I was the God of Paybacks sitting up on my cloud on high, stealing a tombstone would only be the tip of the iceberg for me. Sharaun suggested I make a list, like Earl, and start making right the transgressions of my past – and perhaps I’d be spared any more vandalism or theft. Yeah, I doubt it…

Anyway, as if I haven’t written enough about it now… I’m not going to lie, I wrote the preceding paragraphs in the early morning hours just after discovering I’d been jacked. Writing is my catharsis. I was so angry, even angrier at the thought of them actually making good on their attempts to liberate me of the coffin prop. Had I woken up to that missing, I think I may have cried – so much time and effort (not to mention money) went into it. Losing that coffin may have drained my Halloween spirit, I have so much pride wrapped up in those silly props… I’m not sure I’d even be motivated to finish this year’s… sick in my belly, sick in my belly…

Let’s move on though, I guy can only fester so long.

When I saw an article linked on MeFi the other day about “the death of cursive” (apparently, only 15% of kids wrote their 2006 SAT essays in cursive) and noticed it had a whopping 90 comments, I clicked to see what other people were saying. Before I read the comments, I took mental not of my own opinion: who cares, cursive is dumb anyway. Right then, turns out I wasn’t the only one who sees little need to defend cursive as an art. I was just talking about this the other day with friends, how I haven’t written in cursive since gradeshcool when I was actually learning to write in cursive. I print everything, even my signature is some flowing block print rather than script. Cursive… please… that’s what fonts are for.

Know who’s pretty? Girls.

Goodnight.

Posted on

champagne and scallops


Sorry for yesterday’s lack of words, it was just an uninspired evening. I had one paragraph and figured it wasn’t worth it. Right now, Sharaun’s out and Keaton’s asleep and the Halloween prop timer just kicked on and I’m sitting here listening to Muddy Watters (sometimes run-ons just feel right, y’know?). Now Skinny Puppy’s Addiction from the 12″ collection came on, what a track. It’s a good night. Oh, and, rain either got into the coffin popper’s wiring today, or the motions sensor is shot – because that thing just started flipping out tonight… turning off and on with such rapidity that the corpse looked like he was having a postmortem seizure. I had to disable the solenoid to the pneumatic cylinder, bummer.

I have a sneaking feeling I’ve espoused on this theme before, but I can’t be bothered to look for it among the previous entries – maybe this one will be better. I think it’s funny that we’re at the time now where the Lollapalooza set is starting to settle into their married lives and have children. My idea of what parents should be was, of course, shaped by my parents. And let me tell you, the parents of my generation are definitely removed from that breed. More and more of the parents I meet today have shaggy hair and ten-gauge hoop earrings and tattoos. These are “kids” in their mid-thirties who’re still holding onto bits and pieces of the fads that defined them as youth: grunge, hip-hop, etc. I think it’s hilarious to see a dual-childseat equipped minivan rolling down the road with the Cure or Front 242 drifting from the speakers.

I realize that my personal realization here is likely not unlike the realizations of the generations before me when they stopped and noticed: “Hey, I’m not young anymore… folks my age seem to be hemorrhaging babies, getting divorces, and not being able to sit on the floor without their ‘joints getting sore.'” I’m sure that there comes a point (right around thirty, I’d suspect) in most people’s lives when they realize that their age bracket has moved to the “next phase.” I’m just at that point, and my “age bracket” makes for an interesting menagerie of a parents and children. In fact, I bet when my parents became parents, it was hard for them to imagine a bunch of thirtysomethings in poodle skirts and saddle shoes chewing Blackjack gum and raising kids. Every generation must go through that shock of “we’re not kids anymore, we’re raising kids now.” (Have I restated the same thought enough times yet?)

Get ready geezers, shape up grandparents – we’re the new generation of families, we’re the new parents.

Booked tickets for our trip home for Florida for Christmas this morning, ended up going with United at a premium of about $150 so I could use my “class of service” upgrades and get the mileage. Sucks to pay a grand just to get home before we can even start spending money while there, but I guess it’s a lesson learned for me. Next year, I’ll be putting away a small amount each month in preparation. Anyway, I was able to use my languishing 100k upgrades to get us 1st class for the entire itinerary – which, I suppose, is some small comfort… and perhaps justifies the $150 adder. At least we’ll be flying in style, maxin’ and relaxin’ with champagne and scallops. Sigh… next up: Thanksgiving tickets. Good thing I’m stinking rich. Oh wait, I’m totally not… sigh x2.

Last night I was on one of the message boards I frequently lurk on (I’m a member of nothing, but a reader of a lot), and a well known boarder posted that he was going to commit suicide. Some boarders told him not to, lots cheered him on. I wonder if that guy was serious?

For some reason, the TiVo’s been missing more shows than usual lately (I suspect some mega-conflict with the sheer number of programs we’ve set to record). Sharaun realized it missed a show she likes, and exactly 12min later I had it downloaded and was playing it in perfect quality on the TV via the laptop. It’s times like that, when I’m “stealing” TV shows, that I really value the coolness of the internet. When I stayed in Taiwan for a month last year, I was able to watch any US TV show I wanted.

Goodnight.

Posted on

good enough to print


Sunday night, eve of another week of work. I managed to get all the Halloween decorations up and operational this afternoon, from the witch to the graveyard, from the crank ghost to the coffin popper, even down to the little twinkly lights in the house fixtures. I’m completely satisfied that everything went up as easily as it did, and everything was 100% operational when I turned it all on. Every year, as my decorations multiply and get more complicated, I fear it’ll be the year I’ll get a taste of the real spirit of Halloween – and someone will wreck my stuff. Having put so much effort into creating it all, it would really be a bummer to have to try and rebuild. But, for now it’s up and it’s not wrecked – and this is actually the earliest I’ve ever got it up.

Before I get to the mediocre stuff, cruise on over to Keaton’s updated-weekly galleries to see her latest installment. Go ahead, don’t be shy… click right here.

Sharaun and I live right next to a local college, within walking distance even. For a lark, I decided to see what kind of evening classes are offered, and how much they charge. Turns out a class is dirt cheap, sub-$100, and they have a pretty decent bunch of classes. I’ve decided that, come spring, I’ll take a philosophy class one evening a week. I never got to take any philosophy classes in college – and it’s always been something I’ve been interested in. At such a price, I figured I might as well do it. Who knows, maybe I’ll be unwittingly equipping myself for a career as a deep thinker when the whole engineering thing falls through.

Time to head off to bed folks, we’ll call this good enough to print.

Posted on

the mojo is totally genetic


Friday, eff that noise they call the “week,” it’s time for the girls to pull the bottoms of their shirts up through the necks and tie them off in sexy 5th-grade playground faux-bikini knots. It’s time for boys to gingerly unbutton buttons that are on an alien side of the shirt to them. Time for the smell of Malibu Musk lingering on my lips, time to have to change my JC Penny boxers because we held hands on the way home. It’s the weekend and it’s gonna be massive. Me and the guys are going to hide in those bushes at the front of the subdivision and blindly shoot BB guns at the road when we hear the whine of passing cars. After that we’re gonna try and score some beer and on Sunday I swear I’m gonna fuck Tina… no, I swear guys – I am totally, totally, fucking her this time. Shut up; just wait.

I have this amazing Hold Steady album to thank for that 1st paragraph (well, that and the Steel Reserve I’ll get into below). Listening to this album and its sordid tales of drinking, drugging, and general teenaging… the words are like poems about the very debauchery I once embraced. You call it glorifying irresponsibility, I call it conjuring memories with style.

Bear with me folks, Pat and I hung out tonight and he bought two Steel Reserve tallboys for us to drink. And at 8.1% alcohol by terrible-tasting volume, one Steel Reserve tallboy is enough for anyone on a weeknight. All that malt liquor has had a couple effects on me which will be noticeable to you, my blog readership. 1. I don’t care so much about sentence structure and that kinda crap. 2. I’m going to write about some neato stuff that normally be hard to explain (i.e. I’d have to write a lot to get the idea across) because I won’t care that I’ve not established proper background. Here goes.

When I was a kid, I always thought my parents’ bed smelled odd. More specifically, my dad’s side of the bed. It’s not a smell I can describe, but it’s something unique and immediately recognizable. Also, I would not, then, have classified it as particularly pleasant. Now, however, that I’ve aged into a man myself – I know what this smell was. It is the patented family sleep-induced pheromones. That’s right, we’ve got our own special blend of aromatic excretions. Let me elaborate…

I first realized I had the family pheromones sometime in college. During these years, I slept on a waterbed. Every so often, when I’d wash my sheets, I’d notice an interesting “mark” on vinyl waterbed mattress directly under the area where I normally slept. Perhaps “mark” is a misnomer… a more accurate description might be “stain.” I’d always known that I “slept hot,” being prone to nighttime sweating and overheating – but this “stain” appeared to be more than just sweat. The defining moment came, however, late one night around 3am when I was up late coding a VHDL project with my lab group. As we pulled our all-nighter, I was the coder who happened to be manning the computer, while the other members of my group huddled behind me watching. One of the guys in our group, an outspoken Cuban who’s bluntness I respected, said, as he hovered close to my head, something like, “Dude, has anyone ever told you that you emit a ‘funk’ late at night?” “No,” I replied, “I’ve never head that… but now that you mention it, I think you might be right.”

It took a few more years (and an equally outspoken but much less Cuban wife) for me to realize that this was not some random observation. I not only emit some olfactory “funk,” but also some palpable one. An intoxicating mix of sweat, oils, and raw, raw man-scent. So strong is this “funk” that Sharaun actually complains about me ruining sheets. Apparently, I ruin pillows, sheets, and even mattresses with this incredible genetic advantage. I maintain that these “juices,” as they are, are the secret to my stunning success with women. Sure, I’m fat and balding… but one whiff of me at night and the ladies are reduced to quivering masses of “do me.” Sharaun gets mad at me because I call this my “mojo.” I have nothing else meaningful to say in this paragraph.

And guess what folks? Know how I can tell regular old fussy Keaton from “I’m dead-tired put me to bed” fussy Keaton? If she’s “I’m dead-tired put me to bed” fussy Keaton, her head will have a thin sheen of oil and sweat on it. I’m not joking, she’s got the mojo too… the mojo is totally genetic.

I told you I wasn’t going to care about structure or grammar… this thing is going up just like I wrote it, only spellcheck – no proofread for flow or even sense-making.

Damn… that Steel Reserve gave me the most awful headache. Goodnight.

Posted on

hallelujah


Thursday? Already? Hallelujah.

Tonight Jeff and Ben and I did run-tests on all the Halloween gear. We tested the PicoBoo’s audio capabilities, as well as it’s controllable AC timing. We tested the air cylinder and solenoid, and even busted out the mega fogger and did a test with it (I love that thing). I kinda half decided I want to try again at building a fog chiller, this time something bigger and more powerful, hopefully something that can handle the mega fogger’s action. I love Halloween, and I think this new ceiling dropper prop (which was realized very quickly from the initial concept) is gonna be awesome.

Maybe none of you eagle-eyed grammarians noticed it yesterday, but I made a mistake in yesterday’s post. For some reason, I used the word “quaff” to refer to a person’s hair. At the time, the usage obviously sounded right to me – despite the fact that I know quite well that “quaff” means a/to drink. I think I was thinking of the word “coif,” which is also wrong (means a hat/skullcap). I realized I’d made the mistake about 10min into my dental cleaning Wednesday morning, and let me tell you – it was a trial of OCD-induced suffering to sit there just knowing people were reading my blog and likely noting the complete misuse of a word, knowing I wouldn’t be able to fix it for some time. I kept thinking about people going, “‘Quaff?’ C’mon Dave…” Horror. Anyway, I changed it to “mops,” which, I’m hopeful, is still an acceptable “colorful” term for hair. (Edit: In my defense, there is an archaic use of the word “coif” as a verb meaning to “muss with one’s hair.” So, I’m still off, but closer.)

And that’s it for tonight, that’s it.

Posted on

buy a new shirt and practice using your wang


Hellooo from Tuesday. I’m home alone, Sharaun’s at the gym, Keaton’s sleeping. Listening to my iPod, typing on my laptop, flirting with the idea of doing the dishes before Sharaun gets home… probably won’t (edit: I did). I’m very relaxed now, having the house to myself and only the living room light on; the front room is full of shadows and the Fallish weather outside is spilling in through the open back door. Sometimes a gray sky seems to “mute” outside sound to me, the way fog seems to – like cold and cloudy days are somehow more silent and contemplative. That’s how I feel now, reminds me of killing time on Fall days between classes back in college, makes me want to smoke my pipe (I always feel all introspective and Sherlocky when I smoke my pipe, I swear half the attraction there is psychological). Other than that, it’s a normal normal night.

At work, I associate with a lot of “lifer” engineers. Some of these folks are the kind of engineers who got into the field back in the 80s and maybe even 70s. Sometimes I look at these guys, with their unkempt gray mops and their hands void of any wedding ring, and think about how there’s a chance they’ve never had, nor ever will have, a significant other. You can see the hard core singles: body gone to pot (not that I’m one to criticise) and exhibiting the social abilities and etiquette of a grizzly bear. You can watch the bits of pizza dangling from their coffee-stained moustaches dance as they reach around themselves awkwardly to scratch their ass or pull up their ill-fitting faux-demin elastic-waist jeans. Hear their loud guffaws across the cafeteria as their similarly-afflicted tablemates make a joke about the hot chick on Firefly or reference Daleks or John Cleese. Have these men given up? Reverted back to some closeted adult rehash of their highschool A/V club? I feel for these guys, even though they likely don’t know what they’re missing. Hey lifers: Buy a new shirt and practice using your wang!

Spent a good bif of my not-on-meetings time at work this morning listening to the non-transcode leak of the new Hold Steady. I never got into any of the Hold Steady’s previous efforts, so I came to this album as a virgin to their sound. Not knowing what to expect, but with a decent amount of anticipation due the near unanimous nutting of respected critics, I queued up the folder. What I heard sounded like a follow-up to Darkness on the Edge of Town or the E Street one. One thing is clear, this is rock and roll – good ol’ American rock and roll that just sounds like America. I’m still listening, and still mulling it over, but the immediate early Springsteen-likeness perked up my ears fairly fast. I think it’s gonna be a good one, much better than the disappointing Swan Lake leak people are also swooning about… I’m still kinda bored with that one. How can it not be better when it has songs called “Party Pit” with lyrics like “I’m gonna walk around and drink.” Now that, my friends, is American youth… walking around at parties and drinking, and that’s it… drinking and walking… walking and drinking. Some of these songs make me want to be “young” again. Amen.

Continuing the tunes theme, Pitchfork reviewed the new Decemberists, and rightfully gave it high marks. It’s an outstanding album, one that I didn’t take to immediately, but only out of shortsighted ignorance. After a few listens, the thing took on a new life to me, with songs that tell stories moreso than 90% of the songwriting out there today, and a slightly “bigger” sound than on their previous efforts. I love it now, and realize I was in denial before. We all learn in time, all in time.

Even though it took me a while, I did manage to get a “best of” collection of pictures posted from our 4×4/camping bachelor party for Ben last weekend. You can check out the snaps here if you’re so inclined.

Oh, and for some reason tonight I asked Sharaun what she’d think if I bought a pistol. She was surprisingly receptive, but stated that she’d want to go shooting several times to get comfortable handling anything we did end up with, and that she’d want us to take a reasonable amount of care in storing/securing/locking/whatever the gun in the house. I was pretty surprised. I’m not really rushing out to buy a gun or anything, as I’m only half-sure I want one, but I was kinda surprised that she’d be OK with it regardless.

Goodnight.

Posted on

keaton’s gonna want to go to college


Hey, Monday’s down… spent a good bit of time this evening searching fruitlessly for decent-priced flights back to Florida for Christmas. If I let my memories get all shimmery and hear chimes, I can cast my thoughts back to years gone by when Sharaun and I both flew home for a grand total of nothing more than ~$500. Now, that’s a one-person fare. I’m not sure, but I suspect Osama may be to blame. Anyway, I gave up in a fit of wailing and gnashing of teeth as I stared bleary-eyed at the screen through my uncontrollable tears. And I haven’t even started pricing Thanksgiving, and I’m sure Keaton’s gonna want to go to college sooome day…

I’m sorry if I seem to be stuck on the politics gig recently, but there’s just so much awesomeness going on. We’ve got Woodward’s new book (which I’d really like to read) and republican representatives getting bused trawling for hot nubile gay sex then subsequently retreating to the inner sanctums of Tomcruiseology to clear themselves of those young gay thetans. There’s all sorts of awesome stuff going on in the keerazy world of politics lately; for instance, here’s a good one about our favorite Latin American Bush-basher:

This article tickled me yesterday. The opening line alone was enough to get my head wagging:

The recent military build-up in Venezuela by U.S. nemesis President Hugo Chavez has other countries in the region worried that the weapons could end up in the hands of terrorists, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday.

U.S. nemesis?
…in the hand of terrorists?

Oh man, the message here is pretty clear: speak ill of this administration and they will, somehow-someway, associate you with their fix-all that is terrorism. I’m so fucking sick and tired of hearing things trotted as terrorism before a rapt crowd of fraidycats; grow a damn spine people. Terrorists are here, they’re gonna be here, they’re gonna kill people and blow stuff up. Let’s be reasonable, let’s not invite them in or anything, but let’s at least be rational about the whole thing. One of our original statesmen said it best when he said:

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
– Ben Franklin

Sorry for the vitriol, I got a little worked up there.

Time to download some tunes, I’ve heard the new Hold Steady is good and the new Shins is purportedly leaking as I type this. Oh, and I’d like to make a prediction: The new hotness in illicit filetrading? Not members-only torrent sites, not the newsies, not any P2P app… nope. It’s anonymous upload/download “dumps” like yousendit, megaupload, rapidshare, and sendspace. I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, since it might jinx it, but if you want the new-new stuff and you’re not a member… these sites are the way to go.

Goodnight.