Saturday, August 05, 2006
Random Thought Of The Day
There should be a follow-up series to "So You Think You Can Dance" that's called "So What if You Can?"
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
No Permanent Vacation For Me...Yet
Well, it looks as though I will be going in to work tomorrow, and will continue doing so for the foreseeable future.
Still, it’s pretty much inevitable that I’m going to have to move on, so I suppose that I really ought to be motivated to start seeking out other opportunities, as this whole experience could be considered something of a wake up call.
Of course, that’s the problem.
Typically I have motivation late at night when I’m lying in bed thinking abut all the stuff I’m going to do in the morning, but once morning rolls around the motivation usually doesn’t get out of bed with me.
So a “wake up call” isn’t going to do me any good, as the motivation goes away as soon as I do wake up…
As predicted I never got a call from the dealership yesterday. It doesn’t really matter, though, as getting the exhaust fixed will no doubt require leaving the car there overnight, and if I have to do that I’d rather wait until my days off next week so that I don’t have to hitch a ride to and from work from Brian.
I just called over to the dealership but the manager wasn’t in.
Oh well. I’m sure he’ll call me right back after he gets the message…
Last night I actually saw the episode of Dead Like Me that I made a reference to in talking about how editing the language for basic cable would rob the show of some of its edge.
I was right about that, but I was wrong about the specific quote I used. Rube actually says, “I’m going to kill that fucking baby.”
Or as Sci-Fi Channel would have it, “I’m going to kill that fricking baby.”
Either way, it’s a brutal, shocking thing to say, which actually has some (comic) consequences, but with the actual F-bomb in place it has a lot more power.
Another scene which features George at her desk turning and banging her knee into an open drawer actually made no sense whatsoever because of the editing.
In its original form, George says, “Fuck!” upon hitting her knee.
In its Sci-Fi form, George says, “Jerk!” upon hitting her knee.
This change turns the scene into a WTF (What The Fudge?) moment.
Sure, there actually was someone responsible for the drawer being opened and George banging her knee, or at least there was someone she would have blamed, so in that context, sure, it would make sense for her to call that someone (actually, it’s a something) a jerk.
However, immediately upon George’s utterance of the oath her boss walks by and is appalled by her choice of language, specifically her use of “such an aggressive word.”
Jerk is an “aggressive” word that people are shocked to hear?
Still, the show is well worth watching even with the changes and the WTF (or WTJ) moments caused by word substitution.
They actually run two episodes back-to-back, and the second episode aired is quite possibly my favorite episode of the series, and may even be my favorite episode of anything.
Speaking of favorites of mine, Alan Moore is interviewed over at The Onion A/V Club.
Be advised that there are some images from Lost Girls which feature nudity included with the interview.
Still, it’s pretty much inevitable that I’m going to have to move on, so I suppose that I really ought to be motivated to start seeking out other opportunities, as this whole experience could be considered something of a wake up call.
Of course, that’s the problem.
Typically I have motivation late at night when I’m lying in bed thinking abut all the stuff I’m going to do in the morning, but once morning rolls around the motivation usually doesn’t get out of bed with me.
So a “wake up call” isn’t going to do me any good, as the motivation goes away as soon as I do wake up…
As predicted I never got a call from the dealership yesterday. It doesn’t really matter, though, as getting the exhaust fixed will no doubt require leaving the car there overnight, and if I have to do that I’d rather wait until my days off next week so that I don’t have to hitch a ride to and from work from Brian.
I just called over to the dealership but the manager wasn’t in.
Oh well. I’m sure he’ll call me right back after he gets the message…
Last night I actually saw the episode of Dead Like Me that I made a reference to in talking about how editing the language for basic cable would rob the show of some of its edge.
I was right about that, but I was wrong about the specific quote I used. Rube actually says, “I’m going to kill that fucking baby.”
Or as Sci-Fi Channel would have it, “I’m going to kill that fricking baby.”
Either way, it’s a brutal, shocking thing to say, which actually has some (comic) consequences, but with the actual F-bomb in place it has a lot more power.
Another scene which features George at her desk turning and banging her knee into an open drawer actually made no sense whatsoever because of the editing.
In its original form, George says, “Fuck!” upon hitting her knee.
In its Sci-Fi form, George says, “Jerk!” upon hitting her knee.
This change turns the scene into a WTF (What The Fudge?) moment.
Sure, there actually was someone responsible for the drawer being opened and George banging her knee, or at least there was someone she would have blamed, so in that context, sure, it would make sense for her to call that someone (actually, it’s a something) a jerk.
However, immediately upon George’s utterance of the oath her boss walks by and is appalled by her choice of language, specifically her use of “such an aggressive word.”
Jerk is an “aggressive” word that people are shocked to hear?
Still, the show is well worth watching even with the changes and the WTF (or WTJ) moments caused by word substitution.
They actually run two episodes back-to-back, and the second episode aired is quite possibly my favorite episode of the series, and may even be my favorite episode of anything.
Speaking of favorites of mine, Alan Moore is interviewed over at The Onion A/V Club.
Be advised that there are some images from Lost Girls which feature nudity included with the interview.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Grand Theft Auto: The Valley of Maggido
In an earlier post I made reference to the Left Behind series of apocalyptic literature and how Kirk Cameron has been adapting the books into movies.
Last night while watching The Daily Show I learned that the books are also being adapted into a video game.
Could this be the next big trend in video games?
There are lots of possibilities to combine biblical themes with strategy and advanced 3D graphics.
Imagine a game in which as part of the gameplay, rather than having to maintain your health levels, you have have to maintain your piety levels by going around and washing the feet of lepers and fasting.
And then, once you build up enough piety so as to be considered without sin, you can stone a hooker to death...
Last night while watching The Daily Show I learned that the books are also being adapted into a video game.
Could this be the next big trend in video games?
There are lots of possibilities to combine biblical themes with strategy and advanced 3D graphics.
Imagine a game in which as part of the gameplay, rather than having to maintain your health levels, you have have to maintain your piety levels by going around and washing the feet of lepers and fasting.
And then, once you build up enough piety so as to be considered without sin, you can stone a hooker to death...
Fear Of Rejection
I woke up around 6 am this morning. As there was no reason for me to be awake at such an hour I began to drift back to sleep, but as I did so I realized that I did have to be up in about an hour, which was a distressing realization that, due to the perverse nature of my subconscious, meant that I wouldn’t manage to get back to sleep until about 10 minutes before my alarm went off.
The reason I had to get up so early was that I had to bring my car in to the dealership for an oil change and a state inspection at 7:30.
I hate my dealership because they always make you call to “schedule an appointment,” it always has to be first thing in the frickin’ morning, and yet when you get there, it’s first come, first served, and the only way to be first would be to show up at like 5 am.
The thing is, if you just showed up without calling to schedule, you wouldn’t be able to get in. Basically you’re calling to schedule the right to wait in line.
Even though the actual inspecting and oil/filter changing wouldn’t take long, I knew that something would come up, just because that’s the way it always goes, so it was no surprise to me as I sat in the waiting room that all of the people who had gotten there before and after me were all on their merry way in short order while I sat there continuing to wait.
I’d been there for about two and a half hours when the service manager came in to use the vending machine, recognized me as someone he’d dealt with hours earlier, and asked me to remind him why I was there. I told him and said that I’m sure something must have come up, because it always does, and he said that, no, I was fine.
Then he said, “Oh, wait. There’s a leak in your front exhaust pipe. I’m trying to call Kia to find out if it’s covered by the warranty, but they’re not open yet.”
I said, “Of course,” and went back to waiting.
Shortly thereafter my Nextel beeped. It was Brian asking me if I wanted to have breakfast with him.
He swung by to pick me up and we headed to Deli South (where I had steak and eggs with hash browns and toast), and then he dropped me back off at the dealership.
I went inside, asked the cashier if my car was ready (as I had seen it parked outside), and she said it was but that they needed to bring in my keys. She called for my keys, I paid ($144. Yikes.), and was on my way.
It wasn’t until after I got home that I noticed that where there should be a sticker saying that my current inspection is good through August of next year there was a sticker with a big “No” symbol on it saying “Rejection.”
*Sigh* Like I don’t have to deal with rejection enough in my life without my car getting in on the act…
I called the dealership and found out that the cashier was supposed to send me to the service department so that I could be informed that they hadn’t fixed the exhaust because Kia still wasn’t open (they’re on Pacific time).
So once he gets in touch with them he’s supposed to call me to let me know whether or not I have to pay to get my exhaust fixed.
It’s been a couple of hours and he hasn’t called yet. I’m betting he won’t call today, a conclusion I’ve come to, again, based on previous experience.
Fortunately, I have 15 days in which to get it fixed and get a sticker, so there isn’t a big time crunch.
Yesterday during the salad fiasco at lunch Kathleen asserted her belief that the level of retardation in the service industry is increasing. I would agree with her, though I would add that the level of retardation among customers – as evidenced by my experiences behind people at self-checkout registers – is also increasing.
That doesn’t really tie into anything; it’s just an observation that I was reminded of by my experiences this morning.
Last night I went to see My Super Ex-Girlfriend with Scott and his brother-in-law.
I had gone in expecting to see a few funny scenes and some entertaining action, but I have to say that I enjoyed it a good deal more than I’d expected I would.
The full scene with the live shark hurled through the window actually proved to be even funnier than the snippet shown in the ads.
Luke Wilson, the Wilson brother with the less annoying voice and the non-penile nose, did okay in his role, though I would say that his character’s wimpiness contributed a lot to the dissolution of the relationship, as he was not as “up” for exploring the possibilities of having a super-powered girlfriend as some other men might be.
I find Uma Thurman to be kind of hit or miss in the beauty department. Sometimes she looks amazing, other times not so much. That’s how it was in this movie, in “both” of her roles. Most of the time as G-Girl, with her flowing blonde locks, she was a knockout, but there were a couple of times when she only looked okay at best. With the mousy brown wig and the glasses, she sometimes managed a rather understated beauty in her role as Jenny Johnson, but there were times, particularly when her crazy neediness was coming out, that she was a far cry from her more glamorous persona.
Still, even at her best I’ve never been that big on Uma Thurman, and certainly she wouldn’t really rank at the top of my list.
(Or at least she wouldn’t if I actually kept a list, which I don’t, because, like, a list of what? Hot chicks?. Women who really do it for me, maybe? But then, what is “it,” and how would these hypothetical women go about “doing it” for me anyway?)
However, her placement on this theoretical list aside, it’s unlikely that I would, given the opportunity, ever say something like, “Ms. Thurman, I’m going to have to ask you to stop making sexual advances at me, put your clothes back on, get out of my bed, and kindly show yourself out. And please refrain from offering me all the ‘dirty, freaky, sweaty action’ I can handle as you do.”
All that aside, I will say that I enjoyed her performance in both roles, as she brought a nice intensity to the role of the insecure, jealous woman scorned.
The role was an interesting one, as her physical invulnerability and strength were perfectly contrasted by her emotional vulnerability and weakness, character traits that, as the character was written, made sense.
As G-Girl, she was strong, confident, and capable, but as Jenny she was anything but. After all, dealing with a burning building or jewel thieves is simple compared to dealing with a relationship.
While it wasn’t explicitly stated, I got the impression that G-Girl was the only super-hero in her world, which increased the pressure on her to always be perfect and poised. Add to that the stresses of leading a double life and the trust issues that would result from having to maintain a secret and it’s no wonder that she would handle a relationship so poorly. Throw in the super powers, and you’ve got a spectacular mess that’s not so much a train wreck as it is a supernova.
So overall I was surprised that in addition to playing for laughs the movie actually explored some interesting concepts.
There’s a lot more I could write about the movie and those concepts, but I’ve already written more than I’d intended to, so I guess I’ll move on to…umm…okay, not much to move on to, but I’m still going to try to change the subject.
…
Okay, I’ve got nothing.
Oh, wait, here’s something.
I’ve often mentioned the late, lamented bit of televisual brilliance that was Dead Like Me in these pages, going on at length about what a bunch of dickless retards the executives at Showtime are for cancelling such a great show after only two seasons.
Anyway, the wonderful episodes that were produced during those two seasons are being aired on Tuesday nights on the Sci-Fi Channel, so if you’ve never experienced the joy that is DLM, this is your chance to do so.
Of course, in making the leap from premium to basic cable means a lot editing for content, which will rob the show of some of its edge (It’s just not the same if you don’t actually hear Rube say, “Somebody kill that fucking kid.”), so if you watch the show and like what you see, which is almost a given, I’d advise picking up seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. And writing letters to Showtime telling them that their executives are dickless retards whose only hope for gaining manhood (assuming that, you know, they aren’t women) and intelligence is to do whatever it takes to resurrect DLM.
At the very least someone needs to give series star Ellen Muth some work. If I can’t see her as George, I’d still at least like to see her in something.
How could anyone not want to see more of her? So sullen and surly. *Sigh*
The reason I had to get up so early was that I had to bring my car in to the dealership for an oil change and a state inspection at 7:30.
I hate my dealership because they always make you call to “schedule an appointment,” it always has to be first thing in the frickin’ morning, and yet when you get there, it’s first come, first served, and the only way to be first would be to show up at like 5 am.
The thing is, if you just showed up without calling to schedule, you wouldn’t be able to get in. Basically you’re calling to schedule the right to wait in line.
Even though the actual inspecting and oil/filter changing wouldn’t take long, I knew that something would come up, just because that’s the way it always goes, so it was no surprise to me as I sat in the waiting room that all of the people who had gotten there before and after me were all on their merry way in short order while I sat there continuing to wait.
I’d been there for about two and a half hours when the service manager came in to use the vending machine, recognized me as someone he’d dealt with hours earlier, and asked me to remind him why I was there. I told him and said that I’m sure something must have come up, because it always does, and he said that, no, I was fine.
Then he said, “Oh, wait. There’s a leak in your front exhaust pipe. I’m trying to call Kia to find out if it’s covered by the warranty, but they’re not open yet.”
I said, “Of course,” and went back to waiting.
Shortly thereafter my Nextel beeped. It was Brian asking me if I wanted to have breakfast with him.
He swung by to pick me up and we headed to Deli South (where I had steak and eggs with hash browns and toast), and then he dropped me back off at the dealership.
I went inside, asked the cashier if my car was ready (as I had seen it parked outside), and she said it was but that they needed to bring in my keys. She called for my keys, I paid ($144. Yikes.), and was on my way.
It wasn’t until after I got home that I noticed that where there should be a sticker saying that my current inspection is good through August of next year there was a sticker with a big “No” symbol on it saying “Rejection.”
*Sigh* Like I don’t have to deal with rejection enough in my life without my car getting in on the act…
I called the dealership and found out that the cashier was supposed to send me to the service department so that I could be informed that they hadn’t fixed the exhaust because Kia still wasn’t open (they’re on Pacific time).
So once he gets in touch with them he’s supposed to call me to let me know whether or not I have to pay to get my exhaust fixed.
It’s been a couple of hours and he hasn’t called yet. I’m betting he won’t call today, a conclusion I’ve come to, again, based on previous experience.
Fortunately, I have 15 days in which to get it fixed and get a sticker, so there isn’t a big time crunch.
Yesterday during the salad fiasco at lunch Kathleen asserted her belief that the level of retardation in the service industry is increasing. I would agree with her, though I would add that the level of retardation among customers – as evidenced by my experiences behind people at self-checkout registers – is also increasing.
That doesn’t really tie into anything; it’s just an observation that I was reminded of by my experiences this morning.
Last night I went to see My Super Ex-Girlfriend with Scott and his brother-in-law.
I had gone in expecting to see a few funny scenes and some entertaining action, but I have to say that I enjoyed it a good deal more than I’d expected I would.
The full scene with the live shark hurled through the window actually proved to be even funnier than the snippet shown in the ads.
Luke Wilson, the Wilson brother with the less annoying voice and the non-penile nose, did okay in his role, though I would say that his character’s wimpiness contributed a lot to the dissolution of the relationship, as he was not as “up” for exploring the possibilities of having a super-powered girlfriend as some other men might be.
I find Uma Thurman to be kind of hit or miss in the beauty department. Sometimes she looks amazing, other times not so much. That’s how it was in this movie, in “both” of her roles. Most of the time as G-Girl, with her flowing blonde locks, she was a knockout, but there were a couple of times when she only looked okay at best. With the mousy brown wig and the glasses, she sometimes managed a rather understated beauty in her role as Jenny Johnson, but there were times, particularly when her crazy neediness was coming out, that she was a far cry from her more glamorous persona.
Still, even at her best I’ve never been that big on Uma Thurman, and certainly she wouldn’t really rank at the top of my list.
(Or at least she wouldn’t if I actually kept a list, which I don’t, because, like, a list of what? Hot chicks?. Women who really do it for me, maybe? But then, what is “it,” and how would these hypothetical women go about “doing it” for me anyway?)
However, her placement on this theoretical list aside, it’s unlikely that I would, given the opportunity, ever say something like, “Ms. Thurman, I’m going to have to ask you to stop making sexual advances at me, put your clothes back on, get out of my bed, and kindly show yourself out. And please refrain from offering me all the ‘dirty, freaky, sweaty action’ I can handle as you do.”
All that aside, I will say that I enjoyed her performance in both roles, as she brought a nice intensity to the role of the insecure, jealous woman scorned.
The role was an interesting one, as her physical invulnerability and strength were perfectly contrasted by her emotional vulnerability and weakness, character traits that, as the character was written, made sense.
As G-Girl, she was strong, confident, and capable, but as Jenny she was anything but. After all, dealing with a burning building or jewel thieves is simple compared to dealing with a relationship.
While it wasn’t explicitly stated, I got the impression that G-Girl was the only super-hero in her world, which increased the pressure on her to always be perfect and poised. Add to that the stresses of leading a double life and the trust issues that would result from having to maintain a secret and it’s no wonder that she would handle a relationship so poorly. Throw in the super powers, and you’ve got a spectacular mess that’s not so much a train wreck as it is a supernova.
So overall I was surprised that in addition to playing for laughs the movie actually explored some interesting concepts.
There’s a lot more I could write about the movie and those concepts, but I’ve already written more than I’d intended to, so I guess I’ll move on to…umm…okay, not much to move on to, but I’m still going to try to change the subject.
…
Okay, I’ve got nothing.
Oh, wait, here’s something.
I’ve often mentioned the late, lamented bit of televisual brilliance that was Dead Like Me in these pages, going on at length about what a bunch of dickless retards the executives at Showtime are for cancelling such a great show after only two seasons.
Anyway, the wonderful episodes that were produced during those two seasons are being aired on Tuesday nights on the Sci-Fi Channel, so if you’ve never experienced the joy that is DLM, this is your chance to do so.
Of course, in making the leap from premium to basic cable means a lot editing for content, which will rob the show of some of its edge (It’s just not the same if you don’t actually hear Rube say, “Somebody kill that fucking kid.”), so if you watch the show and like what you see, which is almost a given, I’d advise picking up seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. And writing letters to Showtime telling them that their executives are dickless retards whose only hope for gaining manhood (assuming that, you know, they aren’t women) and intelligence is to do whatever it takes to resurrect DLM.
At the very least someone needs to give series star Ellen Muth some work. If I can’t see her as George, I’d still at least like to see her in something.
How could anyone not want to see more of her? So sullen and surly. *Sigh*
Monday, July 31, 2006
Face Front, True Believers!
Marvel Comics Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada recently appeared on The Colbert Report to talk about the Civil War storyline that's currently going on.
You can find parts 1 and 2 of the interview here.
My feelings about Civil War (and Quesada for that matter) are mixed. I think it's a good concept and so far it's an interesting story (and the art, which is very good, is done by the cousin of a guy that Scott and I know), but I have a problem with the starting point for the story, or at least the execution of it.
I think that it was a good way to start things off, but I just wish they had done it with different characters. The characters they chose to use to kick things off, I feel, weren't treated with the respect that they were due, and were totally mishandled. I think that, for the purposes of the story, it would have worked better to just create entirely new characters, though I can see how using established characters adds resonance to the story. If they absolutely had to go the established character route, I still say they could have handled things with a little more respect and still achieved the same end result.
As for the interview itself, I don't think Quesada was the right person to have on the show, but that's mostly because I would have loved to see Stephen squaring off against Stan "The Man" Lee himself.
'nuff said.
You can find parts 1 and 2 of the interview here.
My feelings about Civil War (and Quesada for that matter) are mixed. I think it's a good concept and so far it's an interesting story (and the art, which is very good, is done by the cousin of a guy that Scott and I know), but I have a problem with the starting point for the story, or at least the execution of it.
I think that it was a good way to start things off, but I just wish they had done it with different characters. The characters they chose to use to kick things off, I feel, weren't treated with the respect that they were due, and were totally mishandled. I think that, for the purposes of the story, it would have worked better to just create entirely new characters, though I can see how using established characters adds resonance to the story. If they absolutely had to go the established character route, I still say they could have handled things with a little more respect and still achieved the same end result.
As for the interview itself, I don't think Quesada was the right person to have on the show, but that's mostly because I would have loved to see Stephen squaring off against Stan "The Man" Lee himself.
'nuff said.
A Fundamentalist's Favorite Def Leppard Song? What else? "Armageddon It"
Last night I stayed up relatively late watching a show I’d recorded on The History Channel about, of all things, the Antichrist.
I watched it mostly to chuckle at some of the end-time theories of various fundamentalists, though it was interesting to see the rather compelling case that various scholars made to show that the apocalyptic stories weren’t really intended as prophetic visions of the future, but rather they detailed the events of the times they were written in while expressing hope for future deliverance. “The Beast,” to whom the term Antichrist is never actually applied in the bible, it seems likely, was actually the emperor Nero given that using a fairly common coding system of the time 666 translates to Nero Caesar, and Revelations was a prophecy about the fall of the Roman Empire.
Of course, that was the perspective of the people using tools like reason and scholarship and attempting to actually understand what the stories are saying rather than using hope and belief to make the stories say what they want them to say, though that contingent got equal time on the show.
Even Hal Lindsey, author of The Late Great Planet Earth, appeared on the show to give his two apocalyptic cents. The producers were kind enough to not point out to him that, despite his predictions, as far as we’ve been able to determine, that Armageddon did not occur in 1988.
I thought that was awfully considerate of them.
They also had the authors of the Left Behind series – end-times-themed books which Growing Pains star Kirk Cameron has been making into direct-to-DVD movies – chiming in along with the various scholars and ministers.
Speaking of the Left Behind books, which are technically fiction even though they express a belief system, someone at work was talking to Scott about books and he told Scott, “I mostly read Christian fiction,” which prompted me to blurt out “You mean like the bible?”
I thought it was funny.
Anyway, one thing that I’ve always found sort of odd about fundamentalists and end-time stories is that it’s the one part of the bible in which they will make room for metaphors.
Everything else in the bible has to be taken literally, but it’s okay to view the book of Revelations metaphorically.
The creation story as spelled out in Genesis? Literal truth.
The Flood of Noah? Literal truth.
The multi-headed Beast of Revelations? A metaphor.
I find that kind of bothersome. After all, if it were literally true, at least at the end of the world we would have some cool monster special effects, with like this Godzilla vs. Mothra and Ghiddorah battle going on.
But no; all we get is some smarmy politician who brings us together in a one-world government. I mean, it’s totally lame. It’s like the shift from the non-stop action of the original Star Wars trilogy to the whole trade agreement yawnfest of Phantom Menace.
What is the final battle going to turn out to be, a filibuster? A debate about redistricting?
Beyond the anticlimactic aspects, though, I have some problems with the whole concept of end-time prophecies.
For one thing, if Revelations is a play-by-play of exactly how things are going to go down, doesn’t that mean that the end is predetermined, and doesn’t predetermination invalidate the entire concept of free will, and in invalidating free will don’t you invalidate the concepts of sin and evil and purity and goodness? After all, if everything you’ve done and ever will do is decided before you’re even born, the whole path laid out for you to follow like a car on a track in an amusement park, you never played any part in determining the path you took in life. You didn’t decide to cheat on your wife or to steal your neighbor’s goat. You didn’t decide to eat that fruit that God told you not to eat. Hell, the snake didn’t even decide to trick your wife into eating it. No one who ever lived made a decision; all of our decisions were made for us.
I didn’t even decide to write this.
And yet, people who didn’t choose to be faithful will be rewarded and people who didn’t choose to not believe will be punished.
Nice system.
Of course, maybe God works the way a lot of authors do, by simply deciding on the beginning and the ending and letting the middle parts work themselves out.
Also not a great system when the eternal disposition of uncounted trillions of souls are at stake.
But moving beyond humanity, what about the Devil? Doesn’t he know how things are going to work out in the end, too? Isn’t he going into it knowing fully well that he’s going to lose? Sure, maybe he’s not as fatalistic as I am, but is there any good reason for him to bother? And I don’t just mean with the final battle, I mean with all of it. Why bother trying to trick people into ending up in hell? Sure, there’s spitefulness, but how long can that last, especially when you know that, in the end, it’s pointless?
Putting those questions aside, we get to the more pragmatic side of things.
If millions of avowed Christians the world over suddenly vanish into thin air, leaving their clothes behind, a charismatic world leader arises and brings peace to the Middle East, then starts insisting that everyone worship him as a god and that we all need to be marked, in some fashion, with 666 in order to buy or sell anything, even I’m going to become inclined to start seriously looking into the whole Jesus as my personal savior thing. I mean, who wouldn’t? Sure, I’m still going to have some issues with God, and I might talk some smack about him to anyone who will listen, but in the face of compelling evidence, most everyone short of crazy people and conspiracy theorists will accept what’s right in front of them, and when you have conclusive evidence that you’re going to spend the rest of eternity in a giant rotisserie oven if you don’t back the right pony, who’s going to be stupid enough to side with the Beast?
Fortunately for fundamentalists, asking questions about things like that is frowned upon, so they don’t have to bother coming up with any answers.
It’s like the episode of Moral Orel I watched last night. Orel’s friend asks him what he got for number three on the science test they just took. Orel, without hesitation, and as if it should be self-evident, responds, “That’s easy: Jesus.”
That answer, of course, explains everything.
Anyway, those are just a few of my issues with end-time prophecies, and I didn’t really mean to go on about it for so long. It’s almost as though it was predetermined, but now I’m going to exercise my free will and talk about something else.
Like…umm…
Okay, not much to talk about today. I went to Ashburn to gas up at Safeway and then had lunch at Ruby Tuesday with Kathleen.
While I was sitting at the table waiting for her she called to say that she was on her way. Then she called to say that I could order for her and told me what she wanted.
So I ordered a Carolina Chicken Salad for her, and, per her instructions, requested no bacon (Blasphemy!) and no onions (Good call.).
For my part, I ordered a Triple Prime Burger, which consists of three kinds of ground beef blended together.
A bit later the waiter came back and asked me how I wanted my burger cooked.
Then he came back again and said, “Just to double-check, you want NO onions or bacon on your burger, right?”
I said, “No, that’s not onions or bacon on the salad.”
He said, “The salad doesn’t come with onions.”
I said, “That’s fine, but it does come with bacon, and she doesn’t want bacon.”
Already knowing from this exchange that the order was going to be fucked up, I decided to confuse the issue a little further and say, “I also don’t want onions or bacon on the burger.” I didn’t think this was totally necessary, since neither was listed as part of the burger anyway, but I figured I’d just make sure.
Kathleen arrived and shortly afterwards our food was brought to our table.
Kathleen’s salad had bacon on it, as well as cheese, something that apparently isn’t usually included, which is why she hadn’t told me to order it without cheese (she’s lactose-intolerant).
She sent it back requesting no bacon and no cheese. The manager brought it out, sans bacon, but with the cheese still in place.
She sent it back again and eventually got it without bacon or cheese.
Though she didn’t put up any kind of stink, I thought that her salad would be on the house, as did Kathleen, but we were both surprised to learn that they charged her for it.
Apparently I paid for lunch last time, so this one was on her. When calculating the tip she asked if she should go low due to the salad mishap. I told her that she should because the waiter seemed to be a retard in general and also didn’t have the common decency to be a hot chick instead of a dumb guy.
From there I was going to go grocery shopping, as I haven’t properly done so since before I left for my trip, but I decided that I didn’t feel up to it and just came home.
In a few hours I’m going to see My Super Ex-Girlfriend with Scott and some other people.
Tomorrow morning I have to bring my car in for an oil change and the state inspection. If history is any indicator that will mean that I’ll be without a car for a couple of days, as I’m sure something will come up.
And that’s pretty much it for today. No news on the job front, though the official strategy announcement and earnings statement is set for Wednesday, so most likely that will be when I find out.
In any case, I need to do a few things and so I will bring this post to a close.
I watched it mostly to chuckle at some of the end-time theories of various fundamentalists, though it was interesting to see the rather compelling case that various scholars made to show that the apocalyptic stories weren’t really intended as prophetic visions of the future, but rather they detailed the events of the times they were written in while expressing hope for future deliverance. “The Beast,” to whom the term Antichrist is never actually applied in the bible, it seems likely, was actually the emperor Nero given that using a fairly common coding system of the time 666 translates to Nero Caesar, and Revelations was a prophecy about the fall of the Roman Empire.
Of course, that was the perspective of the people using tools like reason and scholarship and attempting to actually understand what the stories are saying rather than using hope and belief to make the stories say what they want them to say, though that contingent got equal time on the show.
Even Hal Lindsey, author of The Late Great Planet Earth, appeared on the show to give his two apocalyptic cents. The producers were kind enough to not point out to him that, despite his predictions, as far as we’ve been able to determine, that Armageddon did not occur in 1988.
I thought that was awfully considerate of them.
They also had the authors of the Left Behind series – end-times-themed books which Growing Pains star Kirk Cameron has been making into direct-to-DVD movies – chiming in along with the various scholars and ministers.
Speaking of the Left Behind books, which are technically fiction even though they express a belief system, someone at work was talking to Scott about books and he told Scott, “I mostly read Christian fiction,” which prompted me to blurt out “You mean like the bible?”
I thought it was funny.
Anyway, one thing that I’ve always found sort of odd about fundamentalists and end-time stories is that it’s the one part of the bible in which they will make room for metaphors.
Everything else in the bible has to be taken literally, but it’s okay to view the book of Revelations metaphorically.
The creation story as spelled out in Genesis? Literal truth.
The Flood of Noah? Literal truth.
The multi-headed Beast of Revelations? A metaphor.
I find that kind of bothersome. After all, if it were literally true, at least at the end of the world we would have some cool monster special effects, with like this Godzilla vs. Mothra and Ghiddorah battle going on.
But no; all we get is some smarmy politician who brings us together in a one-world government. I mean, it’s totally lame. It’s like the shift from the non-stop action of the original Star Wars trilogy to the whole trade agreement yawnfest of Phantom Menace.
What is the final battle going to turn out to be, a filibuster? A debate about redistricting?
Beyond the anticlimactic aspects, though, I have some problems with the whole concept of end-time prophecies.
For one thing, if Revelations is a play-by-play of exactly how things are going to go down, doesn’t that mean that the end is predetermined, and doesn’t predetermination invalidate the entire concept of free will, and in invalidating free will don’t you invalidate the concepts of sin and evil and purity and goodness? After all, if everything you’ve done and ever will do is decided before you’re even born, the whole path laid out for you to follow like a car on a track in an amusement park, you never played any part in determining the path you took in life. You didn’t decide to cheat on your wife or to steal your neighbor’s goat. You didn’t decide to eat that fruit that God told you not to eat. Hell, the snake didn’t even decide to trick your wife into eating it. No one who ever lived made a decision; all of our decisions were made for us.
I didn’t even decide to write this.
And yet, people who didn’t choose to be faithful will be rewarded and people who didn’t choose to not believe will be punished.
Nice system.
Of course, maybe God works the way a lot of authors do, by simply deciding on the beginning and the ending and letting the middle parts work themselves out.
Also not a great system when the eternal disposition of uncounted trillions of souls are at stake.
But moving beyond humanity, what about the Devil? Doesn’t he know how things are going to work out in the end, too? Isn’t he going into it knowing fully well that he’s going to lose? Sure, maybe he’s not as fatalistic as I am, but is there any good reason for him to bother? And I don’t just mean with the final battle, I mean with all of it. Why bother trying to trick people into ending up in hell? Sure, there’s spitefulness, but how long can that last, especially when you know that, in the end, it’s pointless?
Putting those questions aside, we get to the more pragmatic side of things.
If millions of avowed Christians the world over suddenly vanish into thin air, leaving their clothes behind, a charismatic world leader arises and brings peace to the Middle East, then starts insisting that everyone worship him as a god and that we all need to be marked, in some fashion, with 666 in order to buy or sell anything, even I’m going to become inclined to start seriously looking into the whole Jesus as my personal savior thing. I mean, who wouldn’t? Sure, I’m still going to have some issues with God, and I might talk some smack about him to anyone who will listen, but in the face of compelling evidence, most everyone short of crazy people and conspiracy theorists will accept what’s right in front of them, and when you have conclusive evidence that you’re going to spend the rest of eternity in a giant rotisserie oven if you don’t back the right pony, who’s going to be stupid enough to side with the Beast?
Fortunately for fundamentalists, asking questions about things like that is frowned upon, so they don’t have to bother coming up with any answers.
It’s like the episode of Moral Orel I watched last night. Orel’s friend asks him what he got for number three on the science test they just took. Orel, without hesitation, and as if it should be self-evident, responds, “That’s easy: Jesus.”
That answer, of course, explains everything.
Anyway, those are just a few of my issues with end-time prophecies, and I didn’t really mean to go on about it for so long. It’s almost as though it was predetermined, but now I’m going to exercise my free will and talk about something else.
Like…umm…
Okay, not much to talk about today. I went to Ashburn to gas up at Safeway and then had lunch at Ruby Tuesday with Kathleen.
While I was sitting at the table waiting for her she called to say that she was on her way. Then she called to say that I could order for her and told me what she wanted.
So I ordered a Carolina Chicken Salad for her, and, per her instructions, requested no bacon (Blasphemy!) and no onions (Good call.).
For my part, I ordered a Triple Prime Burger, which consists of three kinds of ground beef blended together.
A bit later the waiter came back and asked me how I wanted my burger cooked.
Then he came back again and said, “Just to double-check, you want NO onions or bacon on your burger, right?”
I said, “No, that’s not onions or bacon on the salad.”
He said, “The salad doesn’t come with onions.”
I said, “That’s fine, but it does come with bacon, and she doesn’t want bacon.”
Already knowing from this exchange that the order was going to be fucked up, I decided to confuse the issue a little further and say, “I also don’t want onions or bacon on the burger.” I didn’t think this was totally necessary, since neither was listed as part of the burger anyway, but I figured I’d just make sure.
Kathleen arrived and shortly afterwards our food was brought to our table.
Kathleen’s salad had bacon on it, as well as cheese, something that apparently isn’t usually included, which is why she hadn’t told me to order it without cheese (she’s lactose-intolerant).
She sent it back requesting no bacon and no cheese. The manager brought it out, sans bacon, but with the cheese still in place.
She sent it back again and eventually got it without bacon or cheese.
Though she didn’t put up any kind of stink, I thought that her salad would be on the house, as did Kathleen, but we were both surprised to learn that they charged her for it.
Apparently I paid for lunch last time, so this one was on her. When calculating the tip she asked if she should go low due to the salad mishap. I told her that she should because the waiter seemed to be a retard in general and also didn’t have the common decency to be a hot chick instead of a dumb guy.
From there I was going to go grocery shopping, as I haven’t properly done so since before I left for my trip, but I decided that I didn’t feel up to it and just came home.
In a few hours I’m going to see My Super Ex-Girlfriend with Scott and some other people.
Tomorrow morning I have to bring my car in for an oil change and the state inspection. If history is any indicator that will mean that I’ll be without a car for a couple of days, as I’m sure something will come up.
And that’s pretty much it for today. No news on the job front, though the official strategy announcement and earnings statement is set for Wednesday, so most likely that will be when I find out.
In any case, I need to do a few things and so I will bring this post to a close.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Pictures That Have Actual Relevance In My Life Or All Hail King Dork, King Of All Dorkdom!
As best I can determine, the reason I can't post a link to the picture on the site I found it on is that Blogger doesn't like all of the %s in the URL. If you really want to see the picture in its original context you can go ahead and stalk her yourself.
She went to Colorado College and graduated in 2006 with a degree in Neuroscience. Commence stalking.
Anyway, putting the whole stalking thing behind us, I thought I'd post a few of the pictures I found while I was home.
Some of the pictures are pretty humiliating for me, and so should prove very entertaining to the rest of you.
Here we see a shot of the wall of my dorm room, circa 1990 (there's that year again). The picture on the right is my rendition of the cover of an issue of the comic book The Warlord.
The others are my renditions of some of Patrick Nagel's work (the "Nagel" of my "Nagelesque" pictures).
The reference pictures I worked from were obtained from some BBS or other by my friend Joel and printed out on a dot matrix printer, and then I drew them by hand on actual paper. I've been working on the computer for so long that it's hard to remember that there was a time when I drew "the old-fashioned way." Of course, even then there was a high-tech (for the time) component to it.
And here's the other wall. The two on the right are Nagel's, the Zebra woman on the horse is an Olivia, with the reference picture also obtained via Joel and the BBS, and the last one is from the Who's Who in the DC Universe entry for Black Orchid. I don't remember who was the artist for that entry, I just remember thinking the picture was cool and so I drew a copy of it. Too bad you can't see it very well. I'll have to dig out that issue and find out who the artist is and scan the picture.
I no longer have any of these drawings. In fact, I don't think I have any of my old paper and pencil drawings. I'd say that's a shame if I felt like it actually mattered.
And here I'm providing many Threshold readers their first-ever look at my ex-wife, Lorie.
So if you ever wondered what she looked like wonder no more.
At a guess, having no date on the picture, I'd place this around Christmas 1989, or possibly 1988. She's showing off the Christmas stocking that my mom had made for her.
Looking at the picture you may notice a sort of maniacal glint in her eyes. All I can say is, what else would you expect from someone who would marry me?
And here we are on our wedding day. For many Threshold readers this is their first-ever look at me with long hair.
If you're thinking, "They look so young," you're right. At this point, I had turned 19 exactly three months earlier, and Lorie had done so just a little over a month earlier.
If you're also thinking, "Jon looks like such a tool," you're right again.
And for the record, yes, it is still possible for me to enter a church without bursting into flames or being struck by lightning.
I don't think that there's any way possible for me to look like more of a dork than I do in this picture. I think I achieved some sort of ultimate, transcendent level of dorkiness, becoming a kind of Dork Buddha.
All I can really say in my defense is that I was young and that the hair, the glasses, and the marriage all seemed like good ideas at the time.
As far as the marriage goes, ill-conceived though it may have been, and crazy/irritating/childish as Lorie could be at times (most of the time), and as dorky/lazy/moody as I was, there are some happy memories buried somewhere in that mess.
Most of the time, though, I just don't feel up to digging for them.
She went to Colorado College and graduated in 2006 with a degree in Neuroscience. Commence stalking.
Anyway, putting the whole stalking thing behind us, I thought I'd post a few of the pictures I found while I was home.
Some of the pictures are pretty humiliating for me, and so should prove very entertaining to the rest of you.
Here we see a shot of the wall of my dorm room, circa 1990 (there's that year again). The picture on the right is my rendition of the cover of an issue of the comic book The Warlord.
The others are my renditions of some of Patrick Nagel's work (the "Nagel" of my "Nagelesque" pictures).
The reference pictures I worked from were obtained from some BBS or other by my friend Joel and printed out on a dot matrix printer, and then I drew them by hand on actual paper. I've been working on the computer for so long that it's hard to remember that there was a time when I drew "the old-fashioned way." Of course, even then there was a high-tech (for the time) component to it.
And here's the other wall. The two on the right are Nagel's, the Zebra woman on the horse is an Olivia, with the reference picture also obtained via Joel and the BBS, and the last one is from the Who's Who in the DC Universe entry for Black Orchid. I don't remember who was the artist for that entry, I just remember thinking the picture was cool and so I drew a copy of it. Too bad you can't see it very well. I'll have to dig out that issue and find out who the artist is and scan the picture.
I no longer have any of these drawings. In fact, I don't think I have any of my old paper and pencil drawings. I'd say that's a shame if I felt like it actually mattered.
And here I'm providing many Threshold readers their first-ever look at my ex-wife, Lorie.
So if you ever wondered what she looked like wonder no more.
At a guess, having no date on the picture, I'd place this around Christmas 1989, or possibly 1988. She's showing off the Christmas stocking that my mom had made for her.
Looking at the picture you may notice a sort of maniacal glint in her eyes. All I can say is, what else would you expect from someone who would marry me?
And here we are on our wedding day. For many Threshold readers this is their first-ever look at me with long hair.
If you're thinking, "They look so young," you're right. At this point, I had turned 19 exactly three months earlier, and Lorie had done so just a little over a month earlier.
If you're also thinking, "Jon looks like such a tool," you're right again.
And for the record, yes, it is still possible for me to enter a church without bursting into flames or being struck by lightning.
I don't think that there's any way possible for me to look like more of a dork than I do in this picture. I think I achieved some sort of ultimate, transcendent level of dorkiness, becoming a kind of Dork Buddha.
All I can really say in my defense is that I was young and that the hair, the glasses, and the marriage all seemed like good ideas at the time.
As far as the marriage goes, ill-conceived though it may have been, and crazy/irritating/childish as Lorie could be at times (most of the time), and as dorky/lazy/moody as I was, there are some happy memories buried somewhere in that mess.
Most of the time, though, I just don't feel up to digging for them.
Waiting For The Axe To Fall
For a few weeks now it’s been pretty much an accepted fact that there are big, big, really, really fucking huge layoffs coming soon at my company.
There have been all of the usual indicators: a lot of vague talk about changes in direction and paradigm shifts coming from on high, talk of some new business plan being presented to the Board, rampant speculation in the press, lots of rumors swirling around inside the company, stories about people being told to find themselves new jobs ASAP, and, of course, we just had a much more lavish than usual “beer bash” on Thursday.
The general consensus seems to be that the axe will be falling sometime within the next few days.
At this point I have no idea whether or not I’ll be reporting in to work come Thursday morning, which, despite my efforts to keep from panicking, has led to some amount of anxiety.
I’m sure I’ll be okay no matter what happens, but I just really, really don’t feel like having to find a new job. After all, any new job I get is likely to mean more work for less money.
Whether or not my job does survive this round, the fact remains that eventually my job is going to go away. It’s inevitable. I was just hoping that “eventually” would come a lot later, preferably after I’d moved on to something else.
Of course, given that I’ve been in this job for closing in on 4 years, the odds of me moving on to something else without first being pushed don’t really seem tot be in my favor….
In any case, at work over the past few days there had been a sort of funereal gloom hanging in the air...as opposed to the more typical venereal gloom.
But whatever; there’s not much I can do other than hope that I won’t be getting a call in the middle of the week and that come Thursday morning my badge lets me into the building…
I have to say that after a few days back in it I’m really damn sick of the heat and humidity.
In the UP it was about 10 degrees cooler and 75% less humid. In fact, there were a couple of nights on which it got downright chilly (One of those being the night my sister and her family slept in a tent in my parents’ yard. Losers.).
This morning, after I talked to my mother, I made myself some pancakes, sat around for a bit, and downloaded the first two episodes of that new Sci-Fi Channel show Eureka.
A couple of people have told me that I should check it out, so I did, and they were right.
In a way it kind of reminds me of the Jack B. Quick stories Alan Moore wrote for his comic Alan Moore’s Tomorrow Stories, what with all of the super-science running rampant and the humorous tone.
Definitely worth checking out if you’re at all geeky.
Speaking of geeky, over the weekend Scott and I discovered another comic book newsgroup in which people post scans of current comics. Like, every current comic (minus all the Walt Disney and Archie crap that fills the other newsgroups to overflowing). It was like dying and going to comic book geek heaven.
(As a total aside, what’s with the summer of 1990 flashback going on with my MP3s? I’ve got them playing on shuffle and so far every song has been off of an album released then. Weird.)
After watching the first episode of Eureka it was time for lunch, so I opted to head out to a Chinese buffet place here in Leesburg.
I thought about giving Brian and Kathleen a holler and asking if they wanted to join me, but decided against it.
Not because I didn’t want their company, but because I tend to operate on the assumption that, unlike me, other people have shit to do, and that while I appreciate the invitations I get to things (even if I don’t always accept), if I were to just, out of the blue, call someone up, I would be intruding.
(At last: a song from the 21st century.)
In particular I don’t want to bother Brian and Kathleen on a Sunday, as it’s the only day of the week that neither of them is working (and will hopefully remain so, by which I mean that I hope neither of them gets laid off).
So I went out solo, as per usual, ate quickly, hit the Super Target to get something for dinner tonight, and came back and watched the second episode of Eureka.
And that’s been my day so far.
I’ve Got Mad Cyberstalking Skills Department:
The other day at work I caught a whiff of a smoker walking past on his way back from a smoking break and thought about how, despite how sick smoking made me, the smell of cigarette smoke still smells pretty good to me most of the time.
The one exception is when I smell it on my clothes after having been in a smoke-filled place, such as Champions, Brian and Kathleen’s local watering hole, where I’d joined them for dinner on Friday night. When I got home my clothes stunk to high-heaven for cigarette smoke, and it was not at all appealing.
Normally I wouldn’t go anywhere on a Friday night, as doing so would (and did) keep me up past my bedtime, but when Brian beeped me on the Nextel in the car on the way home and said, “…inner…amps…oin us,” and I dug my phone out of the little cranny I’d had it tucked in, turned down the Nick Cave, and responded with, “Didn’t copy that,” and he repeated, “We’re having dinner at Champs if you want to join us,” I decided that I might as well.
Anyway, that little anecdote aside, when I caught that whiff of cigarette smoke, it made me think about my recent outing and mini-relapse in Minnesota, which led me, inevitably, to thinking about that girl Jess (and her sweet rack).
It then occurred to me that, given that I knew her name, where she graduated from college, and what she majored in, I could probably find a picture of her online.
And I did.
(For some reason Blogger will not let me put the entire URL into a link, and keeps turning it into a link if I try just posting the URL. Maybe it disapproves of stalking? In any case, since, for whatever reason, I am unable to link to the picture, I’ll simply post a copy of it here.)
It’s too bad the picture doesn’t do justice to her rack the way that low-cut, spaghetti-strap tank top she was wearing did, though.
Given that I’m not psychotic/ambitious enough to take things any further, I stopped there, amused and a little unnerved at just how easy it can be to find people you encountered briefly half a country away.
Still, because she had asked me what the Internet is, it occurred to me that it would be kind of funny to find some contact information for her and send her something saying, “The Internet is a tool that makes it really easy for lonely weirdoes to track down pretty girls.”
However, the funny would be overshadowed by the crazy, so I never considered the idea beyond simply chuckling at the thought of it.
On the other side of things, to satisfy my curiosity about my other dinner companion that evening, I’d done another search and found him as well.
As you can see from his bio, it turns out that apparently he wasn’t as full of shit as he seemed, and has actually accomplished rather a lot in his young life.
Of course, it’s not like that makes me like him any better. In fact, that he has actually done the stuff he was talking about makes me like him less. Lousy overachieving punk.
Seriously, though, the kid came off as sleazy as a snake-oil salesman and his false modesty about his achievements was really off-putting.
Then again, my anti-social dislike for most people probably had a lot to do with my reaction to him.
Oh well.
In any case, that proved to be the conclusion to my foray into the world of high-tech stalking, and this is proving to be the conclusion of this post.
There have been all of the usual indicators: a lot of vague talk about changes in direction and paradigm shifts coming from on high, talk of some new business plan being presented to the Board, rampant speculation in the press, lots of rumors swirling around inside the company, stories about people being told to find themselves new jobs ASAP, and, of course, we just had a much more lavish than usual “beer bash” on Thursday.
The general consensus seems to be that the axe will be falling sometime within the next few days.
At this point I have no idea whether or not I’ll be reporting in to work come Thursday morning, which, despite my efforts to keep from panicking, has led to some amount of anxiety.
I’m sure I’ll be okay no matter what happens, but I just really, really don’t feel like having to find a new job. After all, any new job I get is likely to mean more work for less money.
Whether or not my job does survive this round, the fact remains that eventually my job is going to go away. It’s inevitable. I was just hoping that “eventually” would come a lot later, preferably after I’d moved on to something else.
Of course, given that I’ve been in this job for closing in on 4 years, the odds of me moving on to something else without first being pushed don’t really seem tot be in my favor….
In any case, at work over the past few days there had been a sort of funereal gloom hanging in the air...as opposed to the more typical venereal gloom.
But whatever; there’s not much I can do other than hope that I won’t be getting a call in the middle of the week and that come Thursday morning my badge lets me into the building…
I have to say that after a few days back in it I’m really damn sick of the heat and humidity.
In the UP it was about 10 degrees cooler and 75% less humid. In fact, there were a couple of nights on which it got downright chilly (One of those being the night my sister and her family slept in a tent in my parents’ yard. Losers.).
This morning, after I talked to my mother, I made myself some pancakes, sat around for a bit, and downloaded the first two episodes of that new Sci-Fi Channel show Eureka.
A couple of people have told me that I should check it out, so I did, and they were right.
In a way it kind of reminds me of the Jack B. Quick stories Alan Moore wrote for his comic Alan Moore’s Tomorrow Stories, what with all of the super-science running rampant and the humorous tone.
Definitely worth checking out if you’re at all geeky.
Speaking of geeky, over the weekend Scott and I discovered another comic book newsgroup in which people post scans of current comics. Like, every current comic (minus all the Walt Disney and Archie crap that fills the other newsgroups to overflowing). It was like dying and going to comic book geek heaven.
(As a total aside, what’s with the summer of 1990 flashback going on with my MP3s? I’ve got them playing on shuffle and so far every song has been off of an album released then. Weird.)
After watching the first episode of Eureka it was time for lunch, so I opted to head out to a Chinese buffet place here in Leesburg.
I thought about giving Brian and Kathleen a holler and asking if they wanted to join me, but decided against it.
Not because I didn’t want their company, but because I tend to operate on the assumption that, unlike me, other people have shit to do, and that while I appreciate the invitations I get to things (even if I don’t always accept), if I were to just, out of the blue, call someone up, I would be intruding.
(At last: a song from the 21st century.)
In particular I don’t want to bother Brian and Kathleen on a Sunday, as it’s the only day of the week that neither of them is working (and will hopefully remain so, by which I mean that I hope neither of them gets laid off).
So I went out solo, as per usual, ate quickly, hit the Super Target to get something for dinner tonight, and came back and watched the second episode of Eureka.
And that’s been my day so far.
I’ve Got Mad Cyberstalking Skills Department:
The other day at work I caught a whiff of a smoker walking past on his way back from a smoking break and thought about how, despite how sick smoking made me, the smell of cigarette smoke still smells pretty good to me most of the time.
The one exception is when I smell it on my clothes after having been in a smoke-filled place, such as Champions, Brian and Kathleen’s local watering hole, where I’d joined them for dinner on Friday night. When I got home my clothes stunk to high-heaven for cigarette smoke, and it was not at all appealing.
Normally I wouldn’t go anywhere on a Friday night, as doing so would (and did) keep me up past my bedtime, but when Brian beeped me on the Nextel in the car on the way home and said, “…inner…amps…oin us,” and I dug my phone out of the little cranny I’d had it tucked in, turned down the Nick Cave, and responded with, “Didn’t copy that,” and he repeated, “We’re having dinner at Champs if you want to join us,” I decided that I might as well.
Anyway, that little anecdote aside, when I caught that whiff of cigarette smoke, it made me think about my recent outing and mini-relapse in Minnesota, which led me, inevitably, to thinking about that girl Jess (and her sweet rack).
It then occurred to me that, given that I knew her name, where she graduated from college, and what she majored in, I could probably find a picture of her online.
And I did.
(For some reason Blogger will not let me put the entire URL into a link, and keeps turning it into a link if I try just posting the URL. Maybe it disapproves of stalking? In any case, since, for whatever reason, I am unable to link to the picture, I’ll simply post a copy of it here.)
It’s too bad the picture doesn’t do justice to her rack the way that low-cut, spaghetti-strap tank top she was wearing did, though.
Given that I’m not psychotic/ambitious enough to take things any further, I stopped there, amused and a little unnerved at just how easy it can be to find people you encountered briefly half a country away.
Still, because she had asked me what the Internet is, it occurred to me that it would be kind of funny to find some contact information for her and send her something saying, “The Internet is a tool that makes it really easy for lonely weirdoes to track down pretty girls.”
However, the funny would be overshadowed by the crazy, so I never considered the idea beyond simply chuckling at the thought of it.
On the other side of things, to satisfy my curiosity about my other dinner companion that evening, I’d done another search and found him as well.
As you can see from his bio, it turns out that apparently he wasn’t as full of shit as he seemed, and has actually accomplished rather a lot in his young life.
Of course, it’s not like that makes me like him any better. In fact, that he has actually done the stuff he was talking about makes me like him less. Lousy overachieving punk.
Seriously, though, the kid came off as sleazy as a snake-oil salesman and his false modesty about his achievements was really off-putting.
Then again, my anti-social dislike for most people probably had a lot to do with my reaction to him.
Oh well.
In any case, that proved to be the conclusion to my foray into the world of high-tech stalking, and this is proving to be the conclusion of this post.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
