Category: halloween

The best holiday ever.

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red marks on my thighs

Whatever.
Sometime Saturday the weather turned, and I wore my first jeans of the fall. Sure, I still coupled them with sandals, but that’s how I rock fall fashion y’all. We even got a cold rainy Sunday, a Sunday what found me asleep on the couch at a friend’s apartment – enjoying being asleep on a foreign couch, being warm inside while it’s cold outside, the sound of football in the background as I wake myself snoring, good company, a full belly. Womby, it was great. Sorry guys, it’s the music that makes me write like this – what music you ask? Well, only what’s possibly the most awesome album to hit my ears this year. For those who don’t care, the next full two paragraphs will be about this album, so you may skip ’em. Onward then.

Effing-A people, the new music boat docked at my place long enough this weekend to rub some electrons on the platters of my hard disk – and impart to me some gorgeous new tunes in digital form. Here I was over the last month or so, trying to make the days’ memories stick to my brain, but with no new soundtrack to aide in the process. The Killers’ and Polyphonic Spree’s album sections in my head are already at their allotted memory-to-music fill-points, so I’ve got stuff going in up there with no album set as a trigger. Damn shame. How shall I earmark the passing of these days? Thankfully, the indie world has heard my cry, and bestowed upon me a new batch of tunes. And I’m not talking mediocre here, I’m talking some of that instant-like stuff, love-at-first-listen kinda junk.

From the moment I right clicked the folder called “Funeral” and highlighted “Play in Winamp,” I was rapt. With every listen I become more engaged with this album by some group called The Arcade Fire. Seemingly tailored for me, made near-perfect to what I enjoy about music. It’s presumptuous sure, but I call this as being on my “best of” 2004 list come December. Other music came from God too, Grand National and AC Newman; both sound good – but I’m hopelessly in love with this Arcade Fire. The first song is about kids growing up in their Neighborhood (a theme stretched over four tracks), and talks about every kid’s dream of underground tunnels from best bud’s room to yours. Talks about walking around and growing up and, and, sorry, I just had an orgasm. Enough about this album, it’s that good.

I’m just about finished up with the graphic novels Kristi lent to me, Maus. Two-thirds of the way through the second volume. I’ve been doing most of the reading in the john, I keep the book there so it’s always handy. Sure, your legs fall asleep from sitting there too long, but I don’t mind. What a sad book. To think a comic book could move someone to tears. A grown man, sitting on the toilet, red marks on his thighs from resting his elbows there as he reads a coming book, crying. Crying while reading a comic book on the commode, must look hilarious. Ach! What do you know from funny?

This weekend was our going-away celebration for Steve and Ragan. It was a joint-effort between Kristi and Erik and Sharaun and I, a pretty nice affair. We did it at our place, and drew a pretty nice crowd. Food was eaten and drink was consumed, and hopefully our guests of honor felt particularly honored. Eventually, the fog machine was taken out, and last year’s Halloween supply box was raided. The result was a zero-visibility black- and strobe lit garage, which was a big hit. Somehow the party ended with three guys, me included, playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out! until 3:30 in the A-M, which is odd to me- but was great fun. Somehow sometime during the evening’s festivities, Steve ended up taking out the shower curtain – and what’s even better, it was caught on camera:

Anybody's guess really.

Prior to the party, I had originally had plans to go skydiving with the crew. However, upon hearing the appalling way that fat brothers are treated at the skydiving place, I chose to stay home. Being that I’m a beefy 240lbs, I’d’ve had to pay $40 extra to jump, and they’d’ve only taken me to 6000ft vs. the 14,000ft everyone else got to jump from. No thanks. I’m not gonna ride in the “special plane” to make a “special jump” at a paltry 6000ft. I play it off funny, but it does kinda run up in ya like a knife.

Found this site this weekend, linked from /., and I love the idea. Now, why can’t I ever be this creative? Tomorrow it’s an early trip by jet over to San Jose for another day of presenting, you know I can’t wait. Dave out.

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my stallion’s stable

I love this picture for some reason.
Thursday night. This morning, while I was waiting for Ben to come pick me up for work (Sharaun’s driving my car while hers is being fixed), I was outside sweeping up the glass from her broken window – all the while thinking it was Friday. I even wore a ballcap to work, which is something I usually only do on Fridays. When I got in the truck with Ben, I said something like, “Well, at least it’s Friday.” When he told me it was only Thursday, I was crushed y’allz. Crushed. I really need to pay more attention to stuff.

Today after a fine lunch at the all-I-could-eat Indian food buffet, I set off to a local sewing machine and vacuum shop to try and scavenge a motor for the Winch Witch. The shopkeep at the place was an eccentric guy, cracking jokes and stuff, and when I asked for any spare motors from dead/retired machines – he took me in the back room and showed me the graveyard of machines I could choose from. After picking a nice vintage Singer that had an external motor and housing, I joked to him, “Now what do you want for this? I have lots of things to trade, even money.” He joked back that “… a bottle of rum would be nice.” Conveniently located next door to the sewing machine shop is a liquor shop. So I walked over, bought an $8 bottle of cheap rum, and walked back to complete the trade. How strange. I traded a bottle of cheap rum for a broken sewing machine, now how many people can say that. Anyway, I think the purchase was for not – it doesn’t look like the motor will power the witch? but at least I got a funny story.

I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m a big dude or something – but I battle constantly with an almost invincible foe: the creeping, twisting, and altogether encroaching boxers. Yeah you heard me, I’m talkin’ bout my unmentionables, my drawers, my stallion’s stable, and more euphemisms ad infinitum. As much as I’m plagued by my boxers, I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to write about it. So I’m here to rectify that y’all, I’m finna lay this down for ya.

As much as boxers are better than briefs, they do have one drawback – there’s a lot more “loose” material to move around and bunch up and tug and pull on things. Now, I usually wear what the underwear industry calls “boxer briefs,” which are like “tight” boxers, or at least tighter than free-hanging boxers. I prefer these because they are more comfortable to me, and why this is relevant to the story I have no idea.

Anyway, I don’t really know exactly what factors lead to the awful shifting and creeping and twisting, but I have some suspects. First off, I think they have to be put on properly. I’ve they’re even one inch off-center, the simple motion of walking will pull one side up your leg into a bunched ring of boxer at the top. Second, I think a tucked-in shirt can influence movement. If you’re getting a lot of tug from the left side of an disproportional tuck, you can expect the left leg of your boxers to follow suit. The real problem is, once the boxers start moving, it seems that no amount of mid-day readjustment can fix it. So, you learn other temporary-relief techniques. I’ve classified them below.

All unwanted boxer movement, at least for me, falls into the category of leg-to-crotch creep. One or the other leg seems to inch higher and higher with each step. This is not only uncomfortable, it’s supremely annoying. There are several ways to address this situation, short of stripping down naked and re-dressing. My two most-used fixes are a) the up-leg-pull-down readjust, and b) the spin-step-drop readjust.

Method A is the more hardcore of the two remedies, and involves manual insertion of right hand up the offending shorts-leg, at which point the boxers are grabbed and manually pulled down into place with a firm tugging motion. I say this is hardcore because to the observer, you’ve got your hand up your own short legs – so it’s really for more extreme situations when you can afford not to be seen. A less-obvious variation of this method is sometimes executable, and involves putting a hand in the pocket on the creeping leg and grabbing the boxers through the pocket lining. Using this method, sometimes just holding the boxers in place can offer some relief.

Method B is more subtle, and therefore better suited for quick-fixes among company. It’s pretty simple: as you sense the action of walking sucking your boxers upward – you counter the effect by spinning the foot of the afflicted leg as it hits the ground, and stepping slightly out with the opposite foot. This releases the boxers from the grip of the upward pull and lets the creeping leg fall freely back into place. While not as effective as the method A, it’s more socially acceptable. Be aware, though, that even method B is not transparent? many a time my wife has asked me, “Why do you twist like that sometimes when you walk?” Dang boxers?

If neither of the above fixes is practical nor feasible, there are occasions where you just have to take you punishment and let ’em ride. Usually this happens at the worst possible time, such as walking around the 90 , 90% humidity streets in Taiwan with customers, dressed in nice clothes and sweating bullets. In this situation, it’s best to just endure the pain – I’ve found biting down on a stick and taking a shot of strong whiskey makes it almost bearable. Then when you get back to the hotel and strip off the Dockers, you’ll see one boxer leg completely rolled up like a giant thigh-condom. Grab that sucker and liberate it, feel the fresh air in places that have been stifled for hours, and breath a sigh of relief – you are now free. Stupid boxers?

Holy crap. See up there a few paragraphs where I used the word “finna?” I started to think maybe some people might not be familiar with the word, so I decided to look it up on Google and maybe link it to the definition. But, the results of the search are awesome enough to get a link of their own. Check out the “hip hop slang” entry in the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia: click here. I especially like how the word “fo” has, count ’em, three meanings. Oh man, rich.

Why do some people put a ‘t’ in the word “else?” Have you heard this band Hoobastank? I saw them perform live twice on the MTV lately, and man that dude can’t even come close to sangin’, couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. He sounds awful, how come I don’t have a contract? I’m done. Dave out.

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vehicular violation

Cool picture of something.
Another day. Thankfully, work went by fast enough and relatively painlessly. Now it’s already 11pm and I’m just starting to write. Won’t be a long entry tonight, but at least I have some media to post – which in my mind somehow makes up for a lack of verbiage. Here we go.

As work has been moving forward on the Halloween props, I’ve been spending a little time at each big phase thus making little “teaser” videos for this year’s haunt. It started with the witch’s test flight video the other day, but now I kind of like the idea of creating a series of short teasers for the props and whatnot – it satisfies the nerd within me. So today I whipped up one from the footage Ben took during our lunch-hour test of the new fog machine. Watch it by clicking this sentence. More teasers to come, stay tuned.

Anyway, we got together tonight to work on the Winch Witch. Keeping with our run of luck and productivity, we completed the entire costume portion of the prop, and she now looks like a full-fledged witch. We were also able to do a couple “real life” tests of her drop path from the roof, to judge speed and crap. I think she came out looking pretty dang good, judge for yourself:

Awesome ain't she?!

I installed a new script on this page the other day that let’s me see when people visit. Since my readership is pretty limited, I can, for the most part, know who is looking at the page, when, and how often. It’s really cool in a voyeuristic kind of way, and there’s always those tantalizing IPs that I don’t recognize, which just fuel my thoughts of closet readers. I guess I need to start spicing up the entries, or providing some kinda service, if I want readership to increase tenfold or something. Owell, I’m cool with writing for writing’s sake.

That’s it all, I’m tired and out of junk to say. Watch the video again or stare at the picture, they’ll have to take the place of the words that aren’t here.

Dave out….

Man, I am so angry right now. The fact that I’m writing this postscript to last night’s entry can vouch for it. I dunno man, the insurance industry must have gotten together and realized we hadn’t paid them a deductible in a while or something. First, Sharaun injures her knee playing soccer. Next, her windshield cracked top-to-bottom this weekend when she was washing her car (hot glass, not-hot water). And finally, shortly after leaving for work this morning she comes back in the house sobbing that her car’s been broken into. Damnit! I absolutely hate car break-ins. She had parked it outside last night because Ben and I were taking up the garage working on the witch project.

Anyway, one night outside – one night! Looks like they tried to slim-jim the door first and then either gave up and shattered the window, or inadvertently broke it while slim-jimming. All they took was her teaching tote-bag full of books and papers, which happened to have $41 in one-dollar bills she’d collected from her class for something. It just pisses me off, and mostly because we’ve already been through this twice at our old apartments in the ghetto – and I don’t like to think that kinda crap goes down in our new suburban utopia. The peace and quiet, not to mention perceived security, of having our own house has fleeced me a bit, sheltered me from the car break-ins and overheard domestic disputes of an apartment complex. Man, really pisses me off.

For real this time…

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the winch witch

May not look like much yet, but I got the vision.
A good weekend. Football at our house with friends on Friday night, dinner at Benihana and a night at the bar on Saturday night, and all the while work forged ahead on the Halloween prop during the days. I’m slowly working on a page dedicated to this year’s Halloween project, the Winch Witch, but it won’t be ready for a while. Anyway – it was a good weekend, involving just the right mix of hangin’ out and gettin’ stuff done.

I don’t think I’m going to write much, as I’m not really in the mood. Sharaun hurt her knee pretty bad at soccer this morning and we ran over to a friend’s place just now to borrow some crutches so she can try and make it to work in the morning. I don’t know quite what that has to do with my mood and writing, but it felt like the right time to write it. This paragraph is pointless anyway, so why try and make it cohesive or anything.

Saturday I helped Kristi and Erik move some furniture into their new place, and then we all convened at our place for some college football. With everyone around, I took the opportunity to bring up the current plans for the Winch Witch. I figured with a bunch of smart people we could have an ad hoc think-tank and maybe brainstorm up a good idea. Turns out it worked, and we collectively not only greatly improved on the original idea Ben and I had, but also managed to really simplify the planned implementation.

We moved away from the original track idea and settled on suspending the witch from a wire strung above. Also, she’s no longer up on the roof, she just starts her run there and ends up nearer the ground before being reset and ascending again. Even the name I gave the project is now somewhat misleading. We’re not using a winch-winch, but we’re still “winching” the prop back up the wire to it’s pre-drop position. The cool thing being that we moved away from something uber-complicated to something really simple: a fishing reel.

We went up to the sports store and picked up a $10 el-cheapo fishing reel, which will act as the “winch” that hoists the witch back up her wire path to be dropped again. With the fishing line attached to an anchor on her back, we’re using a small DC motor to reel her back up after she free-falls on the wire-track. The reel will hold her in place at the top, and when someone breaks the infrared beam we’ll fire a solenoid to depress the reel’s “cast” button, where line can be freely fed. No longer held by the reel, gravity will send her flying down the wire-track toward the trick-or-treater, while an eerie flood light turns on and illuminates her. On the same circuit as the light and solenoid, a cackling soundtrack is played during her descent.

We managed to get everything but the motor and solenoid this weekend, and I’d say we’ve engineered about 70% of the project. We still need to figure out the whole beam-activation and motor on/off timing, and I’m sure once we get her up and running there will be little things we never even thought of that we’ll have to deal with. The good news is that Ben and I were able to make the armature for the prop’s body in one day, with only about $20 worth of material. Now all we need are the electric parts and a good old-fashioned witch mask. I want to string the whole thing up as early as possible to get a good amount of “proving” and debug time in before she actually has to perform on Halloween. We did some initial testing today, and you can watch the results here. People think I’m crazy, but I’m also pretty sure I’m adding this secondary prop to this year’s display – as I can’t see it taking more than a few hours to construct (‘cept I’m planning on using a cheaper and easier windshield wiper motor to power the prop, implemented kinda like this).

OK then… I guess I talked about everything I really wanted to talk about, now I better hit the sack. Until tomorrow or something. Dave out.

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a community service, y’all

I was thinking more the Prisoner of War POW, but this was too cool to not grab.
Not that I think Ollie North is a man of great integrity or anything, I don’t really know enough of the details of the whole Iran Contra situation, but he’s penned a very interesting letter addressed to Kerry – which I thought was a good read. I like the fact that he didn’t get into questioning the whole award-validity thing, making it seem like he’s taking the high road, of sorts. Anyway, I found it interesting, and, if anything, it at least sounds less venomous and fanatical than most political attacks I’ve read. I tend to like things on an inverse scale to the amount of foaming-at-the-mouth political fervor associated with them. If you present me with a well-thought-out, rational, and most importantly calm argument, I’m much more willing to listen to you than if you’re one of a million boobs wearing purple-heart band-aids at a group masturbation for God incarnate. I guess, under the microscope, everyone has some pretty nasty crap in their past that they’d rather stay under the rug or in the closet.

While getting dressed this morning, I came up with my idea for today’s blog. I got struck with a the urge to write after reading the Ollie North letter, and whipped up the intro paragraph in five minutes. Then when I got home from work I got started on the media to backup my story. So, here goes.

Know how I know my wife loves me? She irons patches on all my drawers. Yup, whenever I get a new six-pack o’ boxers, she steals them away and irons little patches and crap on ’em. Some might say this is done, not out of love, but rather as a protection mechanism. The thinking being that, in the heat of the moment, when I’m alone in my hotel room on one of my many business trips and a cute girl has not only managed to Houdini her way through my triple-locked door but also to convince me to drop trou – the unmistakable insignia of a doting wife will convince the aforementioned she-devil to release me from her spell. I mean, for real, what man-ravaging vixen with even an ounce of conscience could continue seducing her prey once she notices a cute little bunny or stately giraffe on her intended-victim’s undies? No one, that’s who! Whatever the motivation, I’m glad my drawers are personalized.

But, what would a blog entry about iron-on patches on my underwear be without pictures of my actual shorts? So, overwhelmingly demanded by the silent majority, I spread before you the cornucopia that is my skivvies. Feel free to take a gander, but don’t stare too long lest you be called by the sirens of my underpants, only to crash unfulfilled on the rocky shoals of my manhood. Feast:


T-rex, my personal fave.
A poodle, with matching blue face.
Little pig.

Speak no evil. See no evil. Hear no evil.
A long-neck giraffe.
A pink bow.

N-I-C-E.
Yup, that does indeed say “Diva.”

And no, I am not embarrassed at the gargantuan size of my shorts – does not the elephant have the largest cage at the zoo? Has not Hollywood taught us that even the largest and mightiest of cages cannot stop hairy beasts from taking women, rampaging the city, and fighting off biplanes while scaling tall buildings? I liken my boxers to these cages, holding back a fury that will only be safe within confines large enough to house it. These boxers are doing a community service, y’all – we should give them a merit badge and put them in the newspaper. And to the overly-scrutinous, I have absolutely no idea what those stain-looking marks are on the giraffe and the bow – I pulled them out of the dirty clothes that way, I swear.

Being that I want my Halloween decorations up about two weeks prior to the actual holiday of holidays, and that it’s already the 2nd week of September – that only gives me one month to plan and construct this year’s Halloween display. So, today I set about the task in earnest. I picked up a 20,000cfm fog machine (nearly eight times the volume of fog from the machine I bought last year) on the ‘net, and Ben and I did some brainstorming on this year’s “big” prop. In the end, I think we’ve hit upon a great one: something I like to call a Winch Witch.

Think this mounted on a track on the roof, using the force of gravity to roll on a track down to the roof’s edge, all the while being lit by eerie light and accompanied by a cackling soundtrack. The “flight” of the witch from the roof peak to edge will be triggered by a garage-door light-beam circuit. When someone breaks the beam, the light will turn on, the soundtrack will play, and the witch will fly on her broom from her hiding place near the top of the roof right up to the roof edge near the unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. I’m most happy because the idea to make the witch prop dynamic is all our own, and we’re already acquiring the components to make it happen. I mean, with a plan like the one below (Kentucky Fried Chicken grease spots and all), how can it not succeed?

Genius in genesis.

Man I love multimedia-rich entries like this one, I wish I had the time and ideas to do them more often. Surf on over to Ben’s site to see pictures from our weekend excursion to Smith Rock, Oregon this weekend. But, I gotta ramble y’all… have to unpack and air out the gear from this weekend’s camping trip… there’s a new Aqua Teen Hunger Force on the TiVo, and I need another bloody mary.

Oh, and you guys know from my former rants that I’m not one to usually go for this kinda crap – but several respected message boards I fequent, as well as trusted publications, have huge threads where people are saying this is real. I’m not sure, but I’m gonna put a link here and see what happens. You have to sign up for some crap “trial” offers at the end, but maybe I can get a free ‘Pod. (I’ve heard ancestry.com is the easiest to cancel after the trial period, and I’m kinda interested in what data they’ve got on my fam anyhow…) Whateva.

G’night, Dave out.

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real people think like that

Rambling again...
Been checking prices on fog machines lately, the non-Halloween prices are much cheaper. My little machine does 3500 CFM, but I want something in the 20,000 CFM range. I want so much fog this Halloween that the fire department has to come to make sure the place ain’t burning down.

Busy day yesterday, saw a US civilian get his head sawn off by hooded captors. Not the CNN or Fox News version, but the uncut version. Brutal. How can someone feel so much hate that they can kill an unrelated, innocent human just because of their nationality? I don’t understand that hate, obviously. Hey, I’d be mad about my people being tortured too – but enough to kill the first English-speaking white dude I find? I think not.

Some peoples’ reactions to the whole incident are almost as disturbing. So many references to “turning that whole country into glass.” I say I don’t understand the hate these people must feel, but apparently we have plenty of people here who not only understand it – they return it. Honestly, I know intelligent, rational people who think we need to “nuke” these heathen nations into extinction. Their rationale goes something like “they all hate us anyway, and they’re killing us.” I’ve heard “that’s what we did in Japan, and that ended that war.” Shit people, are you for real? You think annihilating these people is the answer? Genocide, you’re behind that? I’ve got friends who refer to “those people” as a “plague on the world, the vermin of the earth” if you will.

In a simplified view, the real danger out there isn’t Iraq or Al Qaeda or Muslims or terrorists – it’s ignorant people. I don’t care what color or religion or nationality you are, if you’re ignorant enough to abide such hate – you’re the enemy. The only problem with this logic is, some people are brainwashed and purposely kept in ignorance by a select few, so these few can exploit the masses. If, from day one, you’re taught to believe that it’s noble and heroic to kill the Zionist infidels – you’re gonna try and bag as many Zionist infidels as possible. Regardless of these brainwashed-masses’ culpability for their ingrained beliefs – ignorance still plays a role the way they get to such a state. Right? Is it too much to think that intelligence will cause people to question things that just don’t seem right? If your mullah or grand dragon or prophet is telling you to kill people because he says so, will not the smart man ask “why?” Too optimistic?

Because, I want to believe that people can “know” right from wrong, on a very base level. If you’re ignorant enough to think that nuking the whole middle east is the solution to our problems, you’re no different than the paranoid white-pride southerner who blames the Jews for his failed business ventures. And if you’d be proud to push the red button and blast them all yourself, you’re no better than those assholes who crashed planes into our buildings. I can’t believe real people think like that anyway, it blows me away.

Well anyway, once again I’ve failed to communicate what I wanted to say. But this is what I’m posting, so at least I tried. Dave out.

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pictures in the dirt

thick like a milkshake
Thinking back on it, I’ve pretty much been a huge nerd from day one. Wait… you mean you’re only reading this so you can find the link to the Halloween gallery? OK, here she is: Halloween Bash ’03 in Pictures. Back to the subject at hand: I’ve never liked sports, mostly because I’ve never been any good at them. I suffer from some huge insecurity about organized sports. I get out on the field, court, diamond, whatever? try my best, and look like a fool. There’s almost nothing in the world that can make me blush in shame or embarrassment? sports can.

Oh, I’m not bad at quasi-sports. I can play a pretty good round of disc golf. I’m OK at horseshoes, darts, and bowling. I’m an OK shot with a .22 or bb gun, been known to take out a lizard from a hundred paces with the latter. I just realized all those sports are solo things, you don’t really have to “pass” or coordinate. Maybe that has something to do with it. I dunno, I’ve just always sucked at sports so I’ve always stayed away from them.

I played AYSO soccer when I was young, maybe 1st/2nd grade or something. I was goalie, but I mostly sat down under the net and drew pictures in the dirt with sticks. My cue to wake up was the parents and coach yelling that the ball was coming. I vaguely remember taking wrestling lessons at the YMCA or Boys Club or something (which seems really odd now, thinking about it), I sucked at that too I’m pretty sure. I recall taking karate for a while, I can still remember how to count to like three in Chinese or something – but that’s about it. I’m fairly sure I took swimming lessons at the local public pool around 4th grade, don’t think I ever got deep-end privileges. I tried to play baseball at my little brother’s birthday party and ended up cracking some girl in the head with a bat. Her parents sued us. I sucked at kickball in gradeschool, and flag football in middle school. I sucked at volleyball and basketball in high school gym. Pretty much if there’s a sport, I’ve either sucked at it or not tried it due to me being afraid of all sports.

Much to my surprise, I tried to play soccer with some guys from work this year. I really sucked, but I was incredibly proud that I even got out there and ran around. No one has any idea how unbelievably hard it was for me to put on that uniform and drive to the field. To feign “stretching” and “running” before the game, like I knew what I was doing. It’s so strange but when I’m attempting sports, I feel like every move I make is under a microscope. When I’m trying – everything I do is potentially humiliating, and my lack of skill just compounds it. So much so that the smallest criticism makes me wanna quit to spare myself the embarrassment. Thankfully, I injured myself trying to snowboard (which I also suck at) and didn’t get to play in too many games. I wonder where that fear came from? I know it’s dumb, but I must have developed it somehow.

A geek from day one, I remember writing a “what do I want to be” essay in gradeschool where I said I wanted to be an “animatronics engineer.” That’s right, that’s what I wanted to be? in like 3rd grade or something. They are the dudes that work on the electronic puppet things like the Country Bear Jamboree. I imagined working on something like Westworld when I grew up, helping make special effects type fake people and animals. Several times in the 5th grade, I brought in my electronics kit to show off what I’d made. A decibel meter, a door security alarm, a three note piano, etc. Sheesh, what a nerd.

Changing subjects, what’s a playa gotta do to get a pair of jeans that fit? I wonder how much it costs to get some custom jeans made?? because apparently no one else has measurements like me. There are three key aspects of “fit” I look for in jeans. Can I button and zip them? Can I wear them without having to roll up the legs? And can I walk in them without there being what I call “stress lines” going from pocket-to-crotch? I usually end up getting one out of three, and more often than not it’s the waist. I have to settle for too-long legs and Chinese-finger-trap-style thigh-constriction. Ugh.

Anthony says the caliber of the blog articles is slipping. He predicts I will abandon the blog eventually. I’m not so sure, I’m having more fun writing and posting it online than just writing. It motivates me to write more, which is cool. So I think the blog is here to stay, maybe with no one reading it… but it’ll be here. Also I hate Anthony.

Dave out.