BunkBlog

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

I can’t post from work anymore, since the LAN nazis think there’s something possibly embarrassing about LJ. Paranoid freaks.

Here’s something I thought about today while reading the news (which is allowed).

There’s a militia commander in southern Afghanistan who is giving Karzai a headache. The commander’s name is Bacha Khan. Does that make anyone else think of a Prince remake from the late 80s?

Bacha Khan, Bacha Khan…I feel for you…
current_mood: silly

Some people are referred to as being “so smart they never stop thinking so they’re hard to follow.” That’s not smart, that’s stupid. If you are expected to impart information to another, you must be smart enough to deal with your audience.

There’s a guy yapping about FTP’ing files and ATM LANs and such, when he really doesn’t need to show off how much he knows by spouting acronyms to a non-technical audience.

One of my bosses was mentioned as being too smart a while back. The catalyst was his penchant for changing his mind on major philosophical approaches for documents or test programs. The truly intelligent don’t need to show off their knowledge, and they are capable of forming an opinion or decision before telling it to others. If you can’t get your thoughts in order, you’re not intelligent, you’re scatterbrained. One need not be smart to confuse others. To enlighten others without seeming effort is a good hallmark of intelligence, though, in my opinion.

Daddy, more milk – I’m a piggy.

That monsters turned off that radio.
current_mood: amused

We are brought up with TV shows, books, and movies, all showing an idealized version of growing up. When we’re in our late teens and early 20s, we’re trained to think that we should be carefree and exploring the boundaries of reality and violating our own personal comfort zones.

Who really lives like that? When I was 18, I joined the army. When I was 19, I got married. I worked and worked, and by the time I was 25 I hadn’t completed a single semester of non-language college. I realized when I was 27 that I had missed something, something that everyone is brought up to expect. I had not had a wild time, I had not done anything without worrying about consequences, since I was in high school.

My rebellion included finally casting off the bad marriage that I had been too stubborn to stop even though it had been an obviously bad decision made in lust and immature emotions. I also re-started the 3-part story I had begun a decade earlier. I became heavily involved in graphic design, albeit in an unprofessional capacity. My friend Joe told me that I had to be true to myself, and being a workaday drone for the army while stuck in a loveless marriage and denying myself the companionship of my oldest friends was not true to myself. To make myself non-miserable, I had to evaluate what was important to me, and try to make me happy. If you aren’t happy, how can you be good for anyone else?

What form did your quest for lost youth take? Was it simple, was it life-altering? Have you done it yet, or are you one of those freaks from 90210 that actually had a “normal” adolescence and young adulthood? I’ve not met one yet, although some of my students a couple years ago sure seemed like TV characters…
current_mood: thoughtful

Is it truly sad to be going to bed at 9:30 in the evening?

Had about 45 minutes of work to do today, followed by some annoyance by the LAN Nazis. Home was much better.

• Alex was as close to an angel as he’ll ever be. Got the trees watered, as well as the garden, even emptied some of the scummy water out of the pool-thing. Did the dishes, much to the delight of the woman, no doubt.
• Melissa Etheridge unreleased live stuff being downloaded from Usenet. Some narcoleptic psychotic cow stole my then-complete Melissa Etheridge collection a couple years ago. Still remember the unknown Ms. E in high school, staying up late to listen to the Mighty MET in the city of Lost Angels…
• Great episode of Boston Public. An entire episode about a high school taking place without getting near the school – pretty cool.
• New Utne Reader – some cool articles read while listening to J. Ralph.
• Had to do ironing, which isn’t good, but is necessary. While ironing, my mind wanders a bit as it is wont to do, even without a bottle of Black Dog Ale affecting it. Remembered a statement of philosophy I made 2 years ago, about the Risk to Reward ratio. I feel so witty.

My eyes are gummy, J. Ralph is almost over, and the iron has cooled enough to put it away. G’night, LJ-land, wherever you are.

current_music: J. Ralph – Music to Mauzner By
current_mood: satisfied

Just had a random thought (there was a line of C’s in my game of Big Money) –

How many people below the age of 27 know what the initials CCCP represent?
current_music: Prince and Chuck D. – Undisputed
current_mood: curious

OK, BNL have been excised. Now bopping around the near-empty office to Prince’s Peach:

She was pure, every ounce.
I was sure when her titties bounced.

She’s so cool, I’m so ugly
Only a fool
Could think she would love me.

She’s a Peach!

Ooohoo ooohooo
current_music: Prince – Peach

The guy at the far end of the building is talking so loud I can hear every single word. I’m convinced that he is incapable of using an “inside voice” such as we are trying to instill in our son. It seems more acceptable for a 2-year old to be obnoxiously loud than for a 40-year old.

This guy and one other at work (one of my 8 bosses) talk so loud that I can’t stand to be in an enclosed space with them. It’s like an audio assault every time I have to hold a conversation with these bozos.
current_music: Prince – Peach

Hopefully by posting the lyrics I’ll exorcise this ditty from my brain this morning. Excerpt from Baby Seat by the Barenaked Ladies:

You can’t live your life in the baby seat
You’ve got to stand on your own
Don’t admit defeat
You can’t live your life in the baby seat
You’ve got to stand on your own
Don’t admit defeat

40 days at sea
Then she turned and said to me
“If we make it back
I’ll renounce Jack Kerouac
And all that romantic crap
Like I’m an artist don’t look back”

Now we’re living somewhere else
We keep opinions to ourselves
But still we seek a sneaky peek at heaven
When the working week defeats us
If you think growing up is tough
Then you’ve just not grown enough, baby

Is it wrong to hear “Stone Phillips” announced on the TV and think he should have been a wrestler?
current_mood: tired

To commemorate the posting of E-Text #5000 on Project Gutenberg, I’m beginning the task of mirroring the PG archives (minus the Human Genome Project stuff – why would I want that?) on my local hard drive. Is that weird?

Always meant to read the Odyssey, now I can put it on my Palm… Well, I could if I had a Palm with more memory. Damn, who knew that the old piece of papyrus held 800,000 characters?!? Of course, Shakespeare’s First Folio is nearly 5 megabytes, so I guess old Homey wasn’t as loquacious as Billy Boy…
current_music: The Afghan Whigs – Gentlemen
current_mood: disrespectful

Yet another example of Microsoft sucking giant donkey balls.

I bought Tax Cut and MS Money together, in order to take advantage of the bizarre set of rebates that allowed me to get them both for free after rebate. Tax Cut’s rebate showed up a month ago.

Today, I get a letter from Microsoft

1. They say that I did not send them a receipt which showed Money, but only Tax Cut. That’s false.
2. They say I need to send them a proof of purchase from MS Money 2002. Of course, since I already have, I no longer have any proof of purchase.
3. They require that I refer to the rebate coupon, which of course has been sent to them and I no longer have to refer to.

Therefore, Microsoft sucks ass. I intended to get Money without paying for it, and I ended up paying full price for it. I probably would have bought it anyway (I was using Money99), but this is bullshit. This is the same kind of crap that smarmy legal teams always pull: prove something we don’t agree with, and do it after we’ve hidden all the evidence. Fuck me in the goat ass.
current_music: Throbbing vein in temple
current_mood: annoyed

Never settle.

You know who you are.

_Thursday_

This turned into a truly random meandering thought, so bear with me. I don’t actually have a point.

I have a story that I’ve been writing since 1987, which I haven’t opened in months. I made character sketches in 1990. I made graphic designs of the hardware involved in 1994, so as to better visualize and explain it and avoid inconsistencies. It doesn’t look like I’ll be submitting that to Aboriginal Science Fiction after all (for those who don’t know, that mag is defunct now). Maybe I’ll finish it someday, but don’t hold your breath.

Funny how dreams and passions get waylaid, isn’t it? 13 years ago, I’d have assumed by now I’d be well-off and working as a computer geek somewhere. The details were unimportant to my 18-year-old self. It’s all about the details. Five years ago, I assumed I’d be single, living in California, being a beach bum and computer geek. I also had rediscovered my interest in writing (not poetry – I was never good at that) as well as my interest in creating graphics, both flat and 3D. I even started working on some new models and produced a corporate logo to spec in 1999. I was envisioning a solitary life of work, geek toys, and the Pacific hitting the rocks outside my house. Well, that didn’t happen. Life never works out as you expect, does it?

Life is good. I have a house of my own (It isn’t as large as my brother’s house, but it’s got a larger yard and I’m allowed to have a garden. Nyah!). My bride is amazing and we get along remarkably well on most days; I trust her with my heart and soul. The boy is the cutest and smartest toddler in the whole world. My job doesn’t make me want to kill people, pays well enough and it’s only 8 hours per day and no weekends (contrast to the previous 12 years). My debt is going down, and I’ve heard that my ex’s debt is going up. Kind of a personal vindication there. We cook varied meals, lots of desserts, and nobody cares if I do any situps or run 2 freakin’ miles ever. Pretty damned good.

Being somewhere you didn’t envision is not a bad thing. If life was predictable, what would be the point in living it? It’s a long and winding road, or the road less-traveled. Whichever allusion you prefer.

I tried being deep and mysterious for a while. It just felt like too much work to put on airs. So many people have a hard time just being themselves. There’s a guy I know named Mathew that I could probably write a good “thought” about someday. Not today though – today is all about me.

Is domesticity a bad thing? I don’t particularly enjoy going out to bars. When I was in the army, I’d go out with coworkers occasionally, but we had decent places to go that included decent food or pool tables sans coin returns. Just going to a bar doesn’t appeal. I’d much rather invite folks over to my house for an evening of drinks and talking. Maybe throw in a veggie platter or something and a party game. I don’t own any party games, but I’ve been told they can be fun.

I like spending time at home, curled up on the couch with a book, watching the boy play with his blocks. I enjoy putting together big towers for him to destroy. Does that make me boring? Well, good thing I don’t care about your opinion then. 😛

Art can sometimes invoke a reconsidering of life. Truly great art, anyway. The movie AI, for instance. Although the reviews belabored the film for its overuse of cliches and the visual bludgeoning at the Flesh Fair (which scene could have been cut a bit), it got people talking about important issues so it counts as good art. The issues that could be discussed include re-examining one’s life to see what’s truly important; looking past superficiality to another’s true intent; how anthropomorphizing objects can be cute in children and disturbing in adults; if people didn’t need other people, would we put up with each other? But, I digress. Wait, I had no point in the first place…

It’s been a long time since I’ve update the Random Meandering Thoughts page, and this one is truly random and meandering. Things that aren’t just throw-away comments get put on my site, while more ephemeral stuff goes here.
current_music: Prince – Peach
current_mood: optimistic

Sexual Playground

Please work it into your conversations as possible. Thank you and have a surreal day.

I’m sure that her LJ design looks great on BlooJanuary‘s machine, but darned if I know how.


I normally browse in Opera, so I thought it might have been something peculiar to that browser. Although Opera adheres very closely to the HTML 4.0 standards, most design programs don’t.
So, I checked out IE 6 and looked at the site…

Still impossible to read… Well, how about Netscape 6.2?

Yep, still crappy.

So, girl, what in the world are your computer settings that make that page legible? Must be a Mac thing… Good thing you’re on my friends list, so I never actually go to your LJ directly. 🙂
current_mood: tired

NEW YORK — In a pretend show of support for larger women, the May issue of Vogue features a 16-page spread focusing on plus-size models. “These plus-size beauties are every bit as gorgeous as the models you usually see in magazines,” said Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who has never before and will never again publish photos of normal-sized women. “Female beauty comes in many shapes and sizes, and this spread is a celebration of that fact.” Vogue’s June issue is slated to celebrate female boniness, featuring hundreds of photos of women weighing no more than 103 pounds.

Gotta love the Onion.