Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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on the lam

Huddled in the trenches, gazing on the battlefield.
Ugh. The other day at work the sales rep from a company I purchase stuff from called and wanted to have a “meeting” with me. I hate having meetings with this guy. His job for the company is basically to go around to everyone who spends a certain amount of money with them, schmooze it up with that person, give them t-shirts and goodies, and make sure they continue to buy. I can’t stand the “meetings.” We’ll meet at my cube and go down to the cafe where he’ll buy me whatever I want: coffee, donuts, etc. Then we’ll sit and talk about the current “business climate,” something I know nothing about and care even less to speculate on. After that he’ll talk about what exotic places his job takes him too, where he golfed last, his family, maybe show me some pictures from his last dive expedition, and I sit there and pretend to laugh at the right spots, act surprised when warranted, serious on cue, etc. It’s absolutely terrible. Having to pretend I’m best buds with some dude and that I’m interested in his rambling. Just sell me stuff and drop the swag in the mail please.

So anyway, I hid. Yup, that’s right – I totally went into hiding to escape the mutual-masturbation that is meeting with this dude. Took my laptop, found a nice hidden corner of the building, and hid out for an hour working from the shadows. Do I feel guilty?, yeah a little bit – but I have a history of this kinda behavior so I’m pretty much used to it. I remember back in high school an old boss from the CPA place I once worked called me up. He told me they were moving into their own building and they needed some “manual labor” type help, would I be interested? I wasn’t working at the time and money sounded good – so I agreed. I showed up at the empty lot where the building was being framed at 7am on a hot and humid FL Saturday. My former boss rolled up and told me that he wanted me to take a sledge hammer and go around the entire property, breaking large rocks into smaller ones. Then I would get the wheelbarrow and pick them up so I could move them to a truck. I brought that hammer down on one rock; and then ran away through the woods, through a swamp, over a fence, and got the hell out of there. Oh yeah, I’m a bastard. Man, I hope he never sees this… he’s actually a pretty nice guy.

Tuesday night was chili night at Anthony’s. He makes this awesome chili, which is most famous for being crazy hot. I love hot food. I love having my mouth burn while I eat it, I love the spicy taste. The chili that he makes is notorious for turning away people who can’t handle hot stuff. Sharaun can barely stomach the “mild” batch (he has to make a “mild” and “hot” batch so the wimps can come too). Anyway, it was awesome – but it sure tore me up on Wednesday. Ugh. Super hot food is usually only good in one direction. I’m a hot food and hot sauce nut tho. I used to think that the hottest sauce in the world was Dave’s Insanity Sauce, that was until I had Da Bomb Ground Zero. One dipped toothpick point and you’re on your ass. Turns out I was wrong, as this stuff outdoes them all, and then some. Nearly 7000x as hot as Tabasco (~16mil Scoville Units), it will actually burn the skin on contact. Awesome.

I thought I was pretty good at grammar, but this quiz put me in my place. I got a 7/10, missing the I/me, lied/laid, and affect/effect ones. Stupid grammar, it’s the tricky ones that get me.

I guess that’s it. Pretty dumb one eh? I’ve been working on some little upgrades to the blog page… hoping to unveil them early next week. Until then… Dave out.

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boats, check; poop, check

A boat, in a storm. It's the perfect image for my entry.
Last night there was a storm here. Not a “storm” in the Florida caliber I’m used to, but definitely more of a storm than we usually get. It was rainy, and really windy. At a couple points during the night I woke up to the whipping of the wind outside our window. I love the sound of a storm, if I was smart I woulda been the dude who recorded it and made millions putting it out on a series of “Earth Sounds” cds. Anyway, ’round about 4:30am I woke again to the rain and wind and decided to put on my glasses and go check out what it looked like. I got a glass of water and went to the sliding glass door to look, but couldn’t see much so went back to bed. I was lying there, listening to the storm, and I started imagining that I was in a boat at sea. It was the old times, y’know? with wooden boats like in pirate and pilgrim movies. I was out on the ocean, on some cool journey to some far away place.

I used to know a guy who lived on a boat. When I was manager at the record store, he was a salesperson. One night he asked a couple of us guys to come back to his place and hang out. Man, that boat was so cool. It wasn’t very big, but it smelled all “boaty” like that stuff they treat wood with. In the cabin it had all the trappings of a little efficiency room: TV, fridge, microwave, stove, etc. It was really cool and all old-timey nautical decorated, and I just loved that boat smell. Maybe it was because that little self-contained cabin area tapped into my “enclosed space” fantasies, all womby and stuff. He just had it moored at this little marina, where he payed a docking fee and a hookup fee for electricity and sewage or whatever. I remember him saying that it wasn’t as cheap as I may have thought, but man did I dig that whole idea. You could pick up and leave whenever you wanted, go out for days, whatever. Awesome. We got tight on Jack that night and hung out above deck telling stories under the stars – it was totally awesome. I guess Florida has some things going for it, the Jimmy Buffet lifestyle that the weather affords is certainly one of them. I’d never get Sharaun to agree to moving onto a boat though, and I dunno how much I’d really want to “live” there either. Owell, cool to think about.

When I was a kid, I didn’t like to take any time away from playing with friends. I would spend as much time as I could enjoying myself, and didn’t like to get interrupted with other things I had to do. From this dislike of playtime stoppage, I developed a habit holding in my poops. Oh yeah, I totally said it. While I no longer hold my poops (in fact – I now revel in them, marking them not only as necessary but also totally enjoyable), I did for a few gradeschool years? I think about 3rd through 5th. When I was outside playing and I could feel nature calling, I’d simply ignore it. If it got really bad, I’d sit on the ground with my leg folded underneath me to help add some “you get back in there” pressure to my innards. Why I disliked the poopin’, I have no idea? I think I was just trying to save time or something. Why I’m writing about this, I also have no idea. Other than it might make me laugh one day when I get senile and can jog my memory by reading it.

Hmmm? talked about boats, check. Talked about poop, check. What else was it that I was supposed to talk about?

A friend at work is letting me borrow a machine that rips any video input source to MPEG video for the PC. You just plug in an S-video or RCA source, and it encodes and outputs MPEG video to your PC in real time. I wanted to borrow it so I can rip and archive a couple old VHS tapes I have. One of them is “A Day in the life of Dave,” a 24hr autobiographical documentary I made in high school, and the other is of a videotaped “fitness challenge” that my 5th grade class participated in. (Yes Shaine, you’re in there crab-walking with the rest of us). I know the idea of me in any kind of “challenge” seems an alien one, let alone the “fitness” kind? but I was in 5th grade and relatively un-ruined by Nintendo and potato chips at the time. Anyway, I’m gonna rip ’em and upload them to the web? as I do nearly everything.

Ahem… Dave. Is. Out.

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dudes flirt with dudes

It's a llama. The result of a GIS for "canoodling," I swear.
Back from a weekend where I purposely set out to do nothing, and totally accomplished my goal. Then again, for a weekend of doing nothing I sure managed to do a lot. Friday night Pat called an impromptu get-together at his place for some Kings game watching and poker playing. Saturday day I did absolutely nothing, aside from downloading the new Myst game to check it out. I never play PC games, but I loved the original Myst. Saturday night we had dinner with a variation of the standard crew – and then closed the night in the hot tub. Sunday I took in Sharaun’s indoor game, and we went home and put up the Christmas tree before the Alias crew came over for tri-tip and tater salad. Not a bad weekend.

Dudes flirt with dudes. Oh yeah that’s right, I said it. Dudes flirt with dudes just like they flirt with girls. We may not call it “flirting,” but it’s essentially the same thing in that it achieves the same results. Now, I’m not saying dude/dude flirting is done with the same goal in mind as dude/girl flirting (i.e. canoodling), but the two are alike in that they both provide the flirter and flirtee with some measure of satisfaction and pleasure. Oh I know, all you hard core dudes disagree with me – but you’re just lying to yourself.

You know when your buddy messes up and you give him constant crap about it? Flirting. When you “mess” with another dude about something, sidling and poking fun at him? Also flirting. Akin to chasing girls around the playground and pulling their hair, dudes punch each other, give each other a hard time, and make fun of each others’ faults. Oh we won’t admit it for flirting, but it is. Make fun of what he’s wearing, call him a “pussy” for checking in with his woman, dog on his back hair… all just flirting.

On the music tip, I am really excited because I convinced Steve & Ragan to come to a show with Benz, Sharaun and I. They’ll be popping their indie show cherries to the crooning of the Decemberists at the Bottom of the Hill in January. Too bad we couldn’t have taken them to a more impressive venue for their first show, but owell. Also in music news, Ben put up some cool video and stills of his bro’s band in action at a concert he took in over Thanksgiving. That’s real rock y’all, don’t be scared. Meanwhile I’ve been stuck listening to the two Explosions in the Sky albums I’ve grabbed from absmi. Much like Mogwai, who I also adore – they are instrumental and noisy, fine fine tunes. I’ve also been enjoying the Neil Youngness of the Magnolia Electric Co. album from Songs:Ohia; and the loud grittiness of a “new to me” but old album from A Minor Forest.

OK, tired of writing. Dave out.

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the stupidness of their matrixy battle

power up! what? man, this show blows. how gay is this dude?
Yesterday I saw a commercial for these new “hip-hop” dolls. Yeah, “hip-hop” dolls. Anyway, the dolls are called “Flavas” (which, according to the website is “pronounced FLAY-vuhz”). The commercial had me laughing so hard. There are these dolls, being posed around by some kids’ hands, with some drum machine laying down phat beats in the background. They even have a “Flava-mobile” that’s all tricked out and stuff. They have two kinds of outfits: street and sport. With names like “Happy D,” “Tre,” “P. Bo,” “Tika,” “Liam,” and “Kiyoni Brown,” flashing across the screen in an awesome “spraypaint” font – I was cracking up. The best part of the whole commercial was at the end though, when one of the dolls (I think it must have been Happy D) threw her hands up and back towards her neck in a classic Flava Flav move. Oh man, I was rollin’. Anyway, I guess they are trying to compete with those Bratz dolls or something. Just the description on the Mattel website it good for a giggle if you ask me. (By the way, Liam and Kiyoni Brown are my favorites.)

Kids’ toys suck nowadays. Even the new He Man and Transformers are utter crap. And what’s with kids’ cartoons these days? All that DigiPokeYugi crap? Kids don’t know how bad they have it. On a tangent, am I the only dude alive who can’t stand anime? I mean, I hate that crap… bad. Cartoon Network plays way too much of the stuff, I wish I had Boomerang so I could watch the real classics like Yogi Bear, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Danger Mouse, etc.

But back to the plight of today’s youth… poor children. Everything they watch is Japanese monsters or robots, fighting in midair with lightning and lines of force accentuating the stupidness of their Matrixy battle. Oh, and don’t forget – you can play along in true Dungeons and Dragons style with some dumbass trading cards. Ugh. No thanks. Give me Cobra Command Center, Castle Greyskull, Liono’s Battle Tank, and some of those “crack-up” Hot Wheels that get “dented” when I throw them at the wall. You can keep your three-magic four-attack Charizard… even a Gummi Bear would bounce his pansy ass to death in a few seconds.

Jeez, hope I didn’t come off as some kinda anti-Japanese curmudgeon in that last paragraph… that’s not what I was shooting for at all. Honest, I like Japanese people as much as any people, and I even respect their animation skillz – it just happens that the stuff they make sucks. I give ’em an A for effort though. Keep drawing guys, one day you’re bound to get it right.

OK, I don’t really have anything more to write. I’m actually surprised I even wrote as much as I did.

And once again, Dave is out.

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i’m not a rockafella like you

what do you mean i can't pay you with this?
Hang on, it’s finna get random up in here pretty quick. I think California must be the only state in the union where people sell meat door-to-door. In Florida, we never got door-to-door salespeople. The only people that came unbidden to your door were Jehova’s Witnesses or Mormons. In college we got those “subscribe to some magazines so I can go to Paris” people, but never the volume we get here in CA. Back to the meat. These people actually come around in refrigerated trucks, hawking boxes full of assorted frozen meats. Steaks, burgers, kebabs, etc. It was such a foreign concept to me to see some guy at my door trying to sell me meat. Strange.

Check it out, Florida has a searchable online sex offender database, with mugshots and all! How fun to look up your home town and see how many dudes you know are now registered sex offenders. I went to school with this guy, and this guy, and I even played BB gun war in the woods with this one. Awesome. I knew the database existed, but I was reminded by a link on Fark (perhaps the best site on the internet). The thread about the link was just too rich not too link, so here ’tis – the pictures linked in there were cracking me up last night. Too bad CA doesn’t have an online one, you have to pay $10 per two inquiries, and it’s only by phone. Where’s the fun in that CA?

The recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie is one of my favorite movies of all time I think. Excellent story, with fighting and treasure and love and elements of fantasy. Excellent acting on the part of Depp, and the supremely (only one tick below Ms. Portman in my personal rankings) radiant Keira Knightley (who looks the the winner of some awesome Winona Ryder/Natalie Portman Mr. Potato Head contest, getting the better bits of each). Not to mention some kickass special effects with the whole skeleton-human-skeleton fighting. Rad to the bone y’all, rad to the bone.

Benz went to visit his brother in the NYC for Thanksgiving, and brought back some new tunes. Not unlike myself, Bother Dave is a indie-rock sympathizer – and even fancies himself a drummer in a real live NYC indie band. In other words, he’s in “the scene” up to his hips and occasionally acquires new tunes that somehow slip past Benz’ or my radar. Ben hand carried Quickspace, The Prids, and Clearlake cross the country within the safe confines of his iPod – and thoughtfully shared them with me upon his return. Based on early reports from a mere 15% of the polling precincts, I’d say we have some winners here. More on the new tunes as I decide whether I love them or simply think they don’t sound like Creed. Yes, Creed is the ruler by which all things suck are measured. Sorry.

Thanks to the blog, some pretense has been established where it is assumed that I have these random meandering and kooky thoughts all the time. While it’s generally true that I’m random and excitable by nature, I’m not as odd as the blog may make me out. You think I talk like that paragraph above when you meet me in person? I’d have no friends.

You guys wanna hear some shit? Between the two of us, Sharaun and I have like $40k of school debt. Yeah, that’s right… that’s like forty thousand dollars. Sometimes I think that college is the ultimate Catch 22. I plunge headlong into debt to further my education, all so I can get a higher-paying job that just enables me to pay back the huge debt I went into getting it. Couldn’t I be just as happy driving a tractor with a GED and socking all my 100% profit earnings into savings? Maybe, who knows. What I do know is that I need a serious windfall to get me out from under the specter of that massive black hole of debt. Anyone got any ideas? And Pat, don’t give me some smartass comment about how I should go back in time and finance my entire education by “working.” I’m not a Rockafella like you, and we all know every choice I’ve ever made is somehow deficient compared to what you would’ve done in the same situation.

But fo rilla y’allz… I gotta win some kinda lottery or something… get myself on a level playing field so I can keep some of the fruits of my “labor.” Ugh. I know I’m too young to be complaining about the seesaw not swinging the other way, I guess the college education was so that after time – things more than balance out in my favor. We’ll see, one can only hope. While I wait, anyone wanna pay me insane amounts of money to make mediocre webpages and fill them with banal rambling? Oh yeah, I’ll need full medical and dental too. No takers? Hmmm.. how surprising.

Dave out.

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my page is racist

i'm about to warp to level eight
Well, my brain is already on vacation. That tends to happen to me. I start thinking ahead, and my brain goes on vacation a couple days before my body gets to. I’m already thinking of sitting by a huge hearth, reading a book and sipping on a nice beer. Sitting here listening to the Plastic Ono Band album, Lennon’s first solo effort, what a great album. I remember hearing it for the first time back in 9th grade, brings back a lot of memories. I remember liking it a lot better than the Imagine album, which I had been introduced to first. Yeah, well, that’s that topic I suppose.

Last night you may or may not have noticed that the blog was broken for a few hours. Honestly, I thought I could get away with some upgrades while no one was looking. However, ’round about 11pm, the blog was broken and the page was showing a VBScript error while I was working on it. Lo and behold, Sara called me at home to inform me of the problem. I got a kick out of it (people really read this thing?). Anyway, we tried to debug the problem but by then I was totally fed up with the site. The whole thing started when I wanted to add a “search” box to the main page. I gotta admit, I mostly wanted it for myself, since I often need to find an old blog entry to copy some formatting I used. But I guess others could find it useful for finding old entries.

Anyway, I got it working, but decided that having a search on the main page is dumb. So I moved it to the archive page, where it made more sense to me to be able to search. I’ve done some limited testing, and it seems to work OK. Except for one strange bug that Sara found last night. See, I modified a freeware script to get the search on my page – and it seems that script might be racist. No foolin’. Try searching on the terms “black man,” and you’ll get an error. I’ve looked at the source code and it seems fine. Neither “white man,” nor “chinese man” produce similar results. What a strange error… but kinda funny. Hmm… looks like the search also lets you get to places I’ve delinked in the past. More optimizations to come… but for now, it’s working!

It’s almost Thanksgiving. I’m so pumped. Can’t wait to get out of work for a few days. Haven’t decided if I’m going to take a break from blogging or not, as it might not be something I can avoid. If I can’t upload, that’s all she wrote. It’ll be a good writin’ environment tho, so who knows. Guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

I was reading my new Maxim this morning while taking a rockin’ dump, and they had a Christmas gift guide type thing in there. Guess what they’re pimpin’ as a good gift? A classic arcade cocktail cabinet from Game Cabinets Inc. But holy crap, look at that price tag! They want $4000+ for something I built for $1000, and I don’t even think they ship with MAME or any games (for legal reasons). I should go into business and sell ’em for $2500 each (but then I’d need Anthony to agree to helping build them all). Dang. Anyway, I thought it was cool to see cocktail cabs gettin’ some attention.

OK, I’m done. That’s it until tomorrow. Sorry for the boring blog, but I’m webbed out after wrestling with the search script. See ya.

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busted

Yup, the comment script is busted. I dunno how… I didn’t even muck with it. Seems there are some problems with the database permissions on my server, which I can’t fix right now because there are also some kinda problems with the page I have to use to change those permissions. If we’re lucky, it’ll all work itself out. Hang tight blog faithful.

Dave out.