Oh Lordi

Somehow I feel as though I'm obligated to like the band Lordi.
They are, after all, a Finnish metal band, so it seems like kind of a no-brainer.
And yet...
I suppose it's the overwhelming cheesiness, both in terms of their lyrics and the whole costume and make up shtick, though normally I don't find cheesiness completely off-putting. After all, I grew up reading comic books written by Stan Lee himself, for god's sake.
And yet...
I can say, I think, that I do legitimately like Would You Love A Monsterman? (embedding disabled).
And I kinda-sorta like Hard Rock Hallelujah (again, embedding disabled, which is, quite frankly, stupid).
Lordi, by the way, won the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest, becoming the first Finnish band to do so.
And yet...
Still, I like the two songs linked above well enough to use up two of my ten free credits from Zune* to download them, and I thought that they were worth mentioning here.
On some other fronts, I haven't gotten any news about my mom since Wednesday, at which time she seemed to be doing okay, though - and I guess this is normal - she'd needed a transfusion. She also was still recovering from some of the loopiness brought on by the anesthesia.
My sister Kim was heading down there for the weekend to see her, and I'm sure she'll give me a report soon. Once she's out of ICU and in a regular room, she'll have a phone and I'll be able to call her.
In the meantime I'm assuming that no news is good news.
My flight home on Tuesday seemed to take much longer than it really ought to have, in particular the "25 minute" final approach to Dulles, which kind of felt like we'd turned around and gone back to Minneapolis in order to make the approach, and which actually took more than 45 minutes.
On this trip I became convinced that airline employees don't know how time works, and they don't have a full understanding of the concept, or the terms.
I mean, when they say something like, "We will begin boarding in approximately five minutes," they might as well be saying, "We will begin boarding in approximately...orange?"
But, while travel is always a bit of a hassle, and I was sorry to leave my mom behind to recuperate without me, I needed to get back to my life (such as it is) and my job doing whatever the hell it is I do, and it felt good to be home.
Of course, there were hours and hours of recorded TV piled up on my DVR waiting to be watched, which I kind of resent. How dare the television networks provide programming that I enjoy!
I will say that sleeping in my own bed, which is not at all like a hospital bed, was awesome.
Beyond the hours and hours of TV demanding to be watched, it only took me about an hour to get everything squared away and to get back into the standard swing of things.
It took even less time than that at work, since I'd kept up with it as much as I could while away, and we're entering a slow time of year with the approaching holidays and the end of the year.
Yesterday I actually worked from home in the afternoon, as my morning was taken up by my three-month check-up with my doctor, and a dentist appointment.
One of my crowns had been loose, so I'd gone in to get that fixed. Given that the tooth to the left of it was also a crown, and the tooth to the right of it would eventually need a crown, the dentist recommended that I get a bridge put in. My other option was to have a post put into the loose one and then eventually get the crown on the other, but I chose to go with the bridge. So now I have one big fake tooth that's molded to look as though it's three separate teeth.
Right now I just have a temporary one in place and I'll have to go back to get the permanent one put in.
The dentist was examining his work and told me to "smile big." He assured me that no one would be able to tell the difference, particularly since you can't see my gumline anyway. I was going to say that people wouldn't be able to tell the difference because I don't smile, but I remained silent.

A Conversation At Work:

Me: I actually used the word "synergy" today. I even did the hand gesture, with the interlocking fingers.
Dan: Were you disgusted with yourself?
Me: Yes. Next thing you know I'll be talking about OBIDA or some shit.

*I got a free one-month "Zune Pass" with ten free downloads as part of the AT&T Entertainment Pack that came with my upgrade to the Samsung Focus, a Windows Phone 7 device. So far I really dig my new phone, and I'll be writing a little more on the subject at some point.

I Know, I Know…

Why yes, I do remember that I have a blog.

So why haven’t I been posting anything to it? Well, I should think that if a poor memory isn’t the explanation, that would be easy to figure out: sheer laziness.

Besides, not that much has been going on anyway. Same old, same old. Work, inject insulin, sleep, work, inject insulin…

My sugar levels have been pretty good for a while now, though I attribute that almost entirely to the insulin, because most of the time it doesn’t seem like the diet and exercise thing is having much of an impact.

On the other hand, I have lost about 20 pounds since this whole thing started. It’s a noticeable difference, and I look a lot slimmer. Until I sit down, at which point my stomach juts out like I’m six months pregnant.

Still, I am getting some comments from people who have noticed the weight loss, so I guess that’s good.

I know that, on the rare occasions on which I post, I keep making a reference to launching a new regular feature, but so far it hasn’t materialized. It will, it’s just something that’s going to involve a fair amount of pain, so I need to mentally prepare myself before diving in.

A while back I finally got around to reading Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, which is exactly how it sounds: it’s Pride & Prejudice…with zombies.

It was entertaining enough – up next is Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters – but I kind of found myself confused on a couple of points regarding the book.

First off is the introduction in which the author – no, not Jane Austen, the guy who added in all of the zombie stuff – talks about his immediate thought when the idea was pitched to him. Basically his mind immediately conjured up images of Regency-era Englishwomen fighting zombies in the style of Kung Fu movies.

Really? That’s where your mind immediately went? Because while those aspects were entertaining, I wouldn’t have automatically connected Kung Fu to zombies.

The other thing, and this goes beyond just the book, is the widespread nerd enthusiasm for the concept, and the current zombie obsession that’s so prevalent among nerds. When did zombies become such an essential aspect of nerdom? Is it because of video games? Whatever the case, I hadn’t previously realized that my bespectacled brethren were so enamored with the undead, and would have never predicted the relatively recent explosion of shambling, flesh and brain-munching corpses in popular culture.

I guess I just didn’t have my thumb on the pulse of nerdom, though honestly, who can blame me? I mean, who wants to touch a nerd? They’re all unwashed and sticky and covered in Cheeto dust.

My birthday is coming up on Tuesday. Whoop-de-freakin’- do.

However, it did give an excuse to take the day off (as well as the day before), so there’s that much going for it anyway.

In any case, I just thought I should post something. This time around I’m not going to bother promising to try to post more regularly.

Is It Still A Promise If There's No One To Make The Promise To?

Wow, I've really been neglecting my blogging duties, haven't I?
Of course, there really hasn't been too much to report, beyond dealing with the diabetes, which, apparently, has been going pretty well.
Had a follow-up appointment with the doctor today, who was pleased enough with my progress to recommend lowering the dosage of insulin I shoot up with.
So that's good.
I can also move to testing my sugar just once a day rather than twice a day, which is even better, since I kind of hate doing that more than I hate injecting the insulin.
Injecting the insulin is easy; just dial up the dosage, jam the needle in - it takes a while to get past your natural inclination to not stick sharp things into your body - click, and hold for 10 seconds.
Testing my sugar, on the other hand, is more of a hassle, as there are more things to manipulate - the lancet for poking yourself, the test strip, and the test meter - and you have to contend with the bleeding. I have an annoying tendency to keep bleeding after I think I've stopped, which leads to me getting blood all over everything. My log book for keeping track of my sugar is all covered with bloody fingerprints.
Also, it seems like every tenth testing strip or so is wasted because it doesn't get enough blood, or the meter just randomly errors out for no apparent reason.
The other annoying thing, of course, is the diet. I've kind of pieced together meal plans from online sources, Diabetic Living magazine, and a diet plan my mom sent me, but so far I haven't managed to find anything that's really satisfying, so I'm pretty much hungry all the time.
I have to make an appointment with a Nutritionist, so I'm hoping that will help me work out something that doesn't leave me starving.
On the plus side, my feet don't hurt anymore, and I'm not tired all of the time.
On the negative side, given all of the fiber I've been taking in, I've been even gassier than usual, which I wouldn't have thought possible.
I don't really miss the candy - I've found some decent sugar-free candy, but even that has a lot of carbs, so I still have to moderate my intake - but I have gotten tired of drinking nothing but water. I mean, I drank a lot of water before, but now I'm drinking even more. Most artificially-sweetened stuff tastes like poison to me, but I've found a few varieties of Crystal Light that are acceptable, though still not great. I suppose over time I could get used to Diet Coke or whatever, but the problem is getting throught hat acclimation period.
I tried a Zero Carb Rockstar today, and it wasn't too terrible, but then again, regular Rockstar tastes a bit like cat piss anyway.
(No, I've never tasted cat piss, but I have smelled it, and the senses of taste and smell are inextricably linked.)
On the work front, there have been some changes in my department. My interim boss is going to continue to be my boss, but two of my co-workers are moving to different departments. It's kind of funny; when I first started at my job, I worked with them under the same boss, then I moved to a different boss and no longer worked with them, then they were moved under my boss and worked with me again, and now we're being separated again.
We are getting one new person starting next week, and another person somewhere down the line.
Hopefully somewhere in this mess, now that new "levels" have been created, I'll get some sort of promotion, but I'm really not holding my breath on that.
I did get a (meager) raise and a decent bonus - which I got sooner than expected - so it's not all bad, I guess.
After seeing the doctor this morning I stopped to get my taxes done. Thanks to the tax penalties for some stuff I did with my old 401(k), I'm ending up with a refund that's about half the size of the one I got last year, but it's still nothing to sneeze at.
And that pretty much brings us up to speed.
I'll try to post more frequently than I have been, but I'm not making any promises, and honestly, I don't know who I'd actually be making any promises to.

Is This Thing On?

So, yeah, I haven't really posted anything in a while.
And?
Really, there hasn't been that much going on. Work, sleep, repeat.
We got a fair amoutn of snow Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Enough that, when I got up in the morning and saw how much digging I would have to do just to get going I decided that I was going to work from home.
We're supposed to get even more snow this weekend, starting sometime tomorrow. Panic has already ensued.
Then we're supposed to get hit again on Tuesday.
You'd think it was winter or something.
My preparation for the coming snowpocalypse was to hit the comic shop on my way home to pick up this week's books and last week's books, as I didn't bother heading out that way last Saturday when it also snowed a lot.
I'm taking Monday off so I can get my taxes done and do some other stuff that's easier to get done during the week.
Yesterday when Scott came over for movie night we decided to order Chinese food. I pulled up the Web site for the place we usually order from, we made our selections, and then I went back to the site's main page to get their number, only to discover that, thanks to a fire, they've been closed since November and are tentatively planning to re-open this month.
Scott then suggested another place that they usually order from when he and Stacy are at Jamie and Casey's house.
I discovered two things about the other place that make me inclined to always order from there:

1. They have online ordering.
2. They have shredded pork with dry bean curd, which has supplanted Sesame Chicken as my favorite Chinese dish, but which a lot of places don't have on the menu.

Coincidentally at work today, as we've talked about my love for it and inability to find it at most places I've been to, Dan said, "I brought in shredded pork with dry bean curd for lunch if you want to have some." I told him that I'd just had it last night, and would be having the leftovers tonight, so it would probably be overkill to have it for lunch.
(You see the kind of exciting stuff you're missing out on when I'm not blogging?)
For Riff Trax night last night we watched Iron Man with the Riff Trax commentary, and then, without commentary, Planet Hulk, a new direct-to-video animated movie from Marvel.
That was actually sufficient to entice Casey to come over to join us, as he'd greatly enjoyed the comics on which the movie was based.
It was a fun movie, and apparently had a bunch of random Marvel characters making cameos in it, most of which I missed because I happened to be looking away, and by the time Scott said, "Hey, is that...?" it was too late.
I did really enjoy the reference to Journey into Mystery #83, which featured the first appearance of Thor.
Overall the Marvel movies haven't been up to the level of the DC movies, but they seem to be doing much better...at least when they focus on Hulk.
When I bought the Blu-ray of Planet Hulk, the cashier at Target was struggling to remove it from the security case. I said, "I guess you'll need to 'Hulk out' to remove it."
She wasn't amused.
In other news, I'd been working on yet another picture of Jessica Simpson - one based on an image from the same photoshoot as the last two - but I got kind of burned out. Maybe I'll finish it this weekend.
In any case, I thought I should post something.
Just to add a little more content, here's a commercial that amuses me:

Post-Snowpocalyptic Update

Sometime before midnight last night the snow stopped falling for the most part. I'm not sure what the official tally was, but today it was about up to my knees.
Around 3 AM someone came and did a shitty job of plowing the street, leaving four foot high mounds of snow piled up about two feet out from all of the cars.
I spent about four hours this morning shoveling out the sidewalk and the car. I shouldn't have any trouble getting out tomorrow morning, but I'm not so sure about my chances of getting back in tomorrow evening.
I'd like to think that after seeing that even with record amounts of snowfall the world didn't come to an end, civilization didn't collapse, and we're not living in some Mad Maxian hellscape people will have learned that there's no real need to panic the next time the forecast calls for some of the white stuff, but that would be uncharacteristically optimistic of me.
While I was digging my car out some kid with a shovel came along and expressed his dismay and disappointment over the fact that almost all of us on the street were digging ourselves out, thus dashing his dreams of making some money. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was better off not trying to make money by trying in vain to move around massive amounts of snow with a garden shovel.
In any case, I haven't really posted anything of substance for a while - Though for that matter, have I ever? - so I figured I'd post some updates.
On Wednesday night Scott and I headed to the theater for the RiffTrax LIVE! Christmas Shortstravagana, which was, as expected, freakin' hilarious. They riffed on some really bizarre old Christmas-related (and not-so Christmas-related) short films, including this bizarre fever dream of a tale about the importance of not abandoning your old beloved toys in favor of the shiny new stuff you find under the tree on Christmas morn, and really bad, really creepy animated version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
I'd had to go in to work early that day for a meeting, so I planned on leaving early as well, which made things kind of a pain, as the RiffTrax LIVE! event didn't start until 8. Ultimately we decided to just go to our respective homes after work, then meet at a restaurant near the theater before it started.
Thursday I worked from home in order to be present for the delivery of my new washing machine. I got a call from a recording a bit after 8 AM telling me that the delivery guys would be here in a half an hour. Exactly one hour later they showed up.
They were undaunted by the task of lifting the machine over the toilet, and had the old one removed in a matter of minutes.
There were three guys on the truck, and one stayed outside to unpackage the new machine while the other's hauled out the old one. Once they got outside, one of the two had this to say to the third: Hey Juan! [A long string of Spanish] toilet! Hahahahahaha!
While they were doing that, I cleaned the floor in the bathroom as best I could, and then they easily lifted the new machine (seen below) into place.







They then tested it to ensure it was working and were on their way. The whole process took about ten minutes.
Friday I left work early, hoping to be able to swing by the comic shop and to pick up a few groceries before the panic-stricken horde had time to descend, but apparently they started much earlier in the day, and while the snow had yet to fall, people were driving as though the roads were covered in snow and ice. When I - finally - got to Target, the place was a madhouse.
Even though I'd left work a half an hour earlier than usual, I ended up getting home an hour later than usual.
Madness.
(Madness? THIS. IS. NoVA!)
I spent most of Saturday doing not much of anything, though at some point in the afternoon I was surprised to hear my doorbell ringing.
It was my neighbors' youngest son, who had trudged through the snow to deliver some Christmas cheer:



And that brings us pretty much up to date.
I've got four more days of work - though I suspect my boss will tell me to work from home on Christmas Eve - and then I'm done for the year.
I have no particular plans for the time off, but not being at work will, quite possibly, be the greatest gift of all.

Oh, Right

Oh, right; I have a blog.
So on Sunday I ventured out to Home Depot to check out washing machines, and a good time was had by all.
Well, some.
Okay, there was no good time to be had, quite frankly, but the fact remains that I went to Home Depot and spent more time - which is to say any time - than I wanted to looking at washing machines.
Those fancy steam wash systems were ruled out right away, as they were too damned expensive ($1,100? Do you realize what kind of computer I could buy for that much money?), so I started looking at some of the cheaper models.
While the plan was to get something that would fit in the current location, I did think about future remodelling plans, so I had an eye on the front-loading type that can be adapted to be stackable with a compatible dryer, but they were all pretty expensive.
(Note: as there were no deals, I'm not changing the layout any time real soon, and the old one still works, I didn't look at dryers)
I was, after mentioning that it's just me at home, initially pointed towards some small, cheap machines, but given how long I sometimes go without washing clothes, I do need a decent capacity, so I started looking at more expensive models.
Ultimately I decided that a front-loader probably wouldn't work that well in the downstairs bathroom, and that if I do remodel upstairs I'd have enough room for a side-by-side washer and dryer anyway, so I focused on the top-loading variety.
The girl working there pointed me in the direction of a GE model that was relatively small but, lacking an agitator, had a decent capacity, and was Energy Star-compliant and had some fancy water-saving feature that evidently works in such a way that the agitator isn't necessary for about $550.
She then discovered that there was an identical model for $100 cheaper, though she wasn't sure why it was so much cheaper. After looking at the label I determined that it was cheaper because it lacked some of the complex washing mode combinations, but WTF do I care about any of that?
So that's the one I opted to get.
I'm working from home on Thursday so that I can be here for the delivery, as otherwise I would have had to wait until next year.
I've been assured that the delivery people are required to do whatever they need to in order to haul the old one away, so here's hoping they don't balk at the task of lifting it over the toilet to get it out (and to do the same when it comes to installing the new one).
In the meantime, I had enough clean clothes - with the addition of the new ones - to get me through until them.
So that's that. For now.
I'm still getting used to having the bedroom furniture. I used to keep all of my clothes in the closet, so it's been an adjustment in the morning to remember that my socks and underwear are now in the dresser and that I don't have to immediately go to the closet after showering and drying off.
The dresser has also given me a place to charge my cell phone that's far enough away from my alarm clock that its signal won't cause my alarm clock to randonly let out a blast of static, so I've also had to adjust to not having to put it in the office at night, or retrieve it from there in the morning.
On Friday we had a team (everyone who reports up to my boss' boss) holiday get-together. It was just like the one we had last year, and was even at the same place.
We did this gift exchange thing ($20 limit) in which all the gifts were put on a table, everyone picked a number, and then we went in order to select a gift. If you didn't like the gift you got, you could swap with anyone who had a lower number than you.
I was number 3.
My gift was a Starbucks insulated mug thing and some coffee...the perfect gift for someone who doesn't drink coffee. The mug itself is fine and useful, but the coffee that came with it, not so much.
Still, being number 3, my only swapping options were a CD of holiday music performed by popular artists I don't like and some sort of desktop puzzle/toy thing that looked boring, or lottery tickets.
I decided not to swap in the hopes that someone after me would want to take my gift away from me.
No such luck.
My gift contribution was this 1.3 MP digital camera I found at Target that can also be used as a webcam. The person who picked that opted to swap for the lottery tickets.
When it was my boss' turn to pick a gift, she decided to swap what she'd gotten for the camera.
However, when it was her boss' turn, he decided that he wanted the camera.
So my contribution ended up being the most popular/most traded. Yay me!
As for the lottery tickets that I decided not to swap my gift for, one of them turned out to be a $50 winner.
However, I'm convinced that in some bizarre perversion of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, if I had swapped for the lottery tickets, there wouldn't have been a winner.
That's what I have to tell myself, at least.
Tomorrow night Scott and I are going to another Riff Trax Live event, this time with special guest "Weird Al" Yankovic.
Thursday, as mentioned, I'll be working from home (and no, that's not "working" from home; I find I get more work done when I work at home, actually), then Friday is just a standard Friday, then a weekend that will be over as soon as I blink, then four days at work, and then I'm off for the rest of the year, burning off this year's leftover vacation time.
And that's pretty much all that's been/will be going on.
I've been even more tired than usual lately - went to bed before 9 last night - and haven't had the energy to do much in the way of blogging or drawing or really anything other than getting sucked into watching movies on HBO and Cinemax.
Think I'll see what's on now...

Taking A Break From Writing...To Do Some Writing

Blog? Bbbbbblllllllloooooogggggg. Hmmm....nope, I don't have one of those.
Oh, wait, yes I do.
I managed to get past 38,000 words in my novel last night, and the goal was to get to 40,000 by the end of the weekend, so it's looking like I'm in pretty good shape, so I thought I'd check in here, take a look around, and see how things are going.
*Crickets*
Yep, just how I left it.
Not much going on in my life besides work, sleep, and noveling. I'll be humble; I've pretty much been kicking ass on the novel-writing as far as the word count goes, at least. Ah, the advantages of not having a life.
Work has been, as it has a tendency to be, work. Nothing especially new or exciting going on there.
The problems that Munin had with Windows 7, I learned, were due to chipset drivers. Microsoft has since issued a hotfix for it, and that seems to have done the trick, at least as far as the USB external drive issue goes. I haven't tried using the wireless adapter to see if that problem was fixed, as I kind of like having the higher speeds of the powerline adapter.
Still, I would like to hook up the Blu-ray player and my media extender to the network via a powerline adapter, and so far I haven't found a place that sells individual adapters, just the two adapter sets, so I may end up going back to wireless on Munin.
We'll see.
And that's pretty much it.
Today is, of course, laundry day, and I do have to engage in some amount of writing to hit my word count target, so I guess I'll get back to it.

That Didn't Happen

I had hoped to finish the picture I was working on in time to post it- with the hope of getting something posted before around 8, because...well, just because - but obviously that didn't happen.
I've done a fair amount of drawing this weekend, but don't really have anything to show for it. I've mostly been trying out different techniques and approaches, and finding that the end result is pretty much the same as what I get when I use my old techniques and approaches.
Meh.
Upon - finally - getting home Friday night I was pretty fried. Ten hours spent in meetings will do that to you, especially when four of those ten hours are spent in an "All Hands" meeting.
I'll just say I'm not a fan of them and leave it at that for now.
So I basically vegged out catching up on recorded TV.
Saturday I ventured out for the usual trip to the comic shop, but, having received a bunch of coupons in the mail, I decided to break the post-comic shop routine a little and go to Costco.
I knew it was going to suck, and it didn't disappoint in that regard, as I waded my way through a sea of crying children, oversized carts, and oversized asses.
I still ended up having to go to Target as there were some things I really didn't need to buy in bulk, and other things I couldn't find at all.
Today, as mentioned, I did some drawing.
And that pretty much brings us up to date.

A First

I've never drawn Keira Knightley before, or rather, I've never finished a drawing of Keira Knightley before, so this is a first:



Overall I'm pleased with how it turned out - I can't say the same for the beef stew I made today (it was okay, but a little bland) - though naturally there are aspects of it that I'm not happy with.
I used a variety of ditterent techniques to make this one, relying more on gradients and selective blurring rather than brushes and paths.
However, I still didn't achieve the exact look I was going for, so it's not a total success.
Apart from working on the picture, I didn't do much today besides the laundry and making beef stew (which was, as mentioned, a little bland; I suppose the same could be said for the picture).
Yesterday I arguably did even less, venturing out to the comic shop, where I picked up two more Drawer Boxes (and ordered two more besides), and then going grocery shopping.
I was too lazy to actually bother putting any comics in the boxes.
On Friday evening I headed down to Manassas to visit Scott and Stacy, who, after being cooped up in the house for days on end with sick kids, were desperate for some company.
I think I got selected for my lack of disease-spreading or disease-receiving offspring, and because my immune system, while not as bullet-proof as it once was, is still pretty robust.
While there we watched the Riff Trax of Dragon Wars: D-War, which was atrocious (the movie, not the Riff Trax aspect).
And that pretty much covers my all-too short weekend. I would have liked to have some more time in which to not do anything in particular, but That's not going to happen. Oh well.

Quick Update (With A Recipe)

After being out since August on medical leave, my boss came back to work today.
Yesterday I thought, "I should make her a cake."
Seeing as how I had to stop somewhere after work to get a birthday card for my niece Jenni (more on that in a bit), I decided to pick up what I needed and do just htat.
I went with what I'm sort of known for: a mint chocolate cake
The recipe is as follows:

White cake mix
Peppermint Extract
Chocolate syrup
Green food coloring
Cool Whip (8 oz should be sufficient)

Prepare the cake mix per the instructions on the box, but add about 1/4 tsp of the Peppermint Extract to the mix. Bake per the the instructions in a 9x13 pan.
Let the cake cool, then take a wooden spoon with a round handle and use the handle to poke a series of regularly-spaced holes in the cake (I usually go four or five holes across by however many can fit along the length of it). Fill the holes with chocolate syrup.
Next, add 1/4 tsp of the Peppermint Extract to the Cool Whip, along with a dash of the green food coloring (this is optional, and I don't give an exact measure because it's up to you how green you want to make it), stir it all together until you've got an even color, then spread it over the top of the cake.
Finally, drizzle some more chocolate syrup on top of the Cool Whip in whatever pattern you like.
It's best to keep the cake refrigerated, as the frosting can get kind of runny at room temperature.
In my experience, people will love it, and will assume that it was incredibly complicated to make.

The cake was enjoyed by everyone on my team, and greatly appreciated by my boss. Everyone was amazed by the fact that 1. I could bake at all 2. I could bake something so seemingly complicated 3. I was thoughtful enough to do something like that.
While I'd mostly intended it just for us, there were other people coming in and out of the break room, so we couldn't really say, "No! You can't have cake!" so several other people had some. One person, after finishing his piece, asked who made it. When everyone pointed to me, he came over and shook my hand. I guess he liked it.
As for the birthday card...last time I had to stop at a store to pick up a birthday card it was for my nephew Jacob. I was stymied by the fact that while they had plenty of cards for nieces (and daughters, and granddaughters, and sisters, and moms) they had virtually no cards for nephews (or males in general). I finally managed to find one card for a nephew.
This time around there were virtually no cards for females, and absolutely none for nieces.
Who knew that birthday cards based on gender were seasonal?
(Seriously, WTF?)
Finally I had to settle on a non-gender-specific card.
We didn't do Riff Trax night tonight, as two of the kids have confirmed cases of the flu and Scott woke up this morning exhibiting symptoms.
We were actually planning to postpone it until tomorrow anyway, as Scott was going to have to watch the kids tonight, but now we won't be having it at all this week. Oh well.
As for me, I've been dividing my time between not doing anything in particular and working on the picture I started on Sunday (I said it was complex and would take a while).
And that pretty much brings you up to date.

That Can't Be Right

I can't have a blog, right? I mean, if I did have one I'd post entries on it.
Seriously? I actually have a blog.
Huh, live and learn.
You really haven't been missing much, though.
Friday night I did some more comic book organizing, getting into the Ts before running out of Drawer Boxes.
Saturday I went to the comic shop in the hopes of picking up some more, but they didn't have any in stock, so they had to order some more.
I realized that I didn't need to go grocery shopping, so after the comic shop I just came straight home.
I really didn't do much else.
I did do some drawing, but the one thing I finished - which I used my drafting table to actually sketch out, the scanned in to my computer to finish - looked like crap. The other thing is pretty complex, and is probably going to take a while to finish.
That's pretty much it.
This morning Dan and I walked over to the cafe in a nearby building to hit the breakfast bar. On the walk back, things shifted around in my containter, so my scrambled eggs got mixed in with the fruit I'd gotten.
And not just a little bit, either. It ended up looking like the fruit had been mixed in with the eggs while they were cooking. Orange-Pineapple flavored eggs...not exactly the new taste sensation.
And there you have it. My life since my last post.

Pain In The S

As should be apparent from the pictures posted late last night, while watching the Riff Trax of The Dark Knight, and the latest DC Animated project Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (which was really good, but I think I need to watch it again while less distracted), Scott and I set to work on the task of organizing my comics and moving them from their old longboxes to their new Drawer Boxes.
We decided the best approach was just to haul the longboxes downstairs, move some furniture out the way, and put them into semi-organized alphabetical piles, then attack each pile in order and more thoroughly organize them.
We got as far as organizing and boxing through the Fs before I, being the kind and benevolent friend that I am, let Scott leave so that he could get home at a reasonable hour.
After he left I moved the piles around so that I had an unobstructed path for moving through my living room, and organized the G pile(s) before turning in for the night.
Tonight I made more progress, getting all the way up to the S piles.
And man, are there ever a lot of S piles.
After all, from 1986 to 1995 I never missed an issue of Superman - and in some cases bought multiple copies of some issues; hey, it was the 90s and I was just as much of a sucker when it came to the speculator boom as everyone else - and in 1991 DC launched Superman: The Man of Steel, which, again, I never missed an issue of until I gave up my comics addiction in 1995.
Throw in sundry titles like She-Hulk and Sandman, and that makes for a lot of piles of comics.
One thing that's become abundantly clear is that I'm going to need more Drawer Boxes.
Oh well; at least I have something to do this weekend.
If I'd been smart, or rather, less lazy, since I did think of it and intend to do it, I would have been inventorying the comics throughout the organization process for entry into my database.
At least it'll be a little easier to do that once they're all organized and in their boxes.
Not much else going beyond that.

Mindless Repetition

I woke up fairly late (for me) yesterday, but because I had picked up my comics on Wednesday, I figured I could still sit around doing not much in particular for a while, as all I had to do for the day was gas up the car and go grocery shopping.
So it was around noon by the time I finally took a shower and got dressed to head out into the world, but just as I was getting dressed my mom called. So I talked to her, and then got a very late start on my day.
I stopped to get gas first, and the was going to head over to Super Target to do my grocery shopping. However, while we’d put backing boards into a substantial number of bags on Wednesday night, I’d whiled away the evening on Friday putting comics into them while watching TV, so the pile of available bags had diminished considerably. I decided to rectify that by heading to the comic shop anyway and picking up some more bags and boards.
When I approached the counter with my armful of archiving supplies, the cute-ish girl that works there asked, “Do you need your stuff?”
I said that no, I’d already picked it up on Wednesday. She said, “Duh, I probably rang you up.” I confirmed that, but I don’t think she noticed. Another customer, looking at all the bags and boards, said, “You must have picked up a lot of stuff on Wednesday.” I said, “No, I’ve just been very lazy for a very long time.”
After that it was off to a world of crying babies and children who don’t have the sense to get out of the way of the shopping cart that’s about to run them down, pushed by someone who wouldn’t really feel all that bad about doing so, because, really, it would be a valuable life lesson for them to get knocked down.
After that I came home and set to work on doing some more bagging and boarding.
I have to say, at this point I find myself having a hard time pulling myself away from the bagging and boarding. I guess I have some need to perform a mindless, repetitive task right now, though given how repetitive my life is, you wouldn’t think that would be a need that’s been going unfulfilled.
While putting a stack of comics into bags I found an issue of Adventures of Superman that was missing its back cover, and it was clear that it had been cut off, not torn. As a guess, I would say that I’d cut off the back cover because in those days I didn’t have ready access to a copy machine and the back cover had either a subscription form (it would have been around the time that I’d ordered a subscription to Adventures of Superman, Action Comics, and Superman) or a voting form for the Comic Buyer’s Guide Awards.
(I used to vote for the CBG Awards every year because a. I wanted to let my voice be heard in the hopes that the comics and creators I liked were recognized and b.voting for the CBG Awards got you a free copy of the issue of CBG in which the Award results were printed)
So I took a break from my archiving to go online to buy a replacement copy of that issue. While I was at it, I remembered that I was missing a couple of issues of the Superman titles from the period in which I was collecting them (1986-1995), so I might as well fill the gaps in the collection by ordering those as well.
So I fired up my comic database and printed out lists of the issues I have so that I could identify the gaps. I found that I was only missing two issues of Action. I’d already added the replacement issue of Adventures to my cart at Mile High Comics’ site, so I did a search on Action to order the missing issues. Sadly, they didn’t have either of them in stock, so I cleared my cart – I decided it would make sense to order all three from one source – and went to another site. They only had one of the two issues of Action that I needed. So I tried another site. Same thing. Finally I found a site from which I could order all three, and promptly did so.
Again, while I was at it, I decided that I’d order some of those Drawer Boxes to replace my longboxes. I figured I need about ten of them, which worked out, as they sell them in packages of five.
They actually sell Drawer Boxes at the comic shop, but they’re fifteen bucks apiece, as opposed to fifty bucks for a package of five directly from the site.
However, the shipping costs and tax tacked on an additional sixty bucks to the cost, which would actually make buying them directly from the site more expensive that buying them from the comic shop, where I would have the advantage of not having to wait for them to be shipped and would also get a discount that would make the cost even lower than the total cost of ordering them from the site.
(When you use their subscription service, the comic shop gives you discounts on your purchases. The amount of the discount is dependent on how many monthly titles you have in your pull list; I have enough to get the maximum discount.)
So it looks like I’ll be buying them from the comic shop after all.

Phase 2: ?

Beyond doing the laundry and working on a picture that didn't turn out for crap, I haven't done much today. That is, however, hardly surprising.
Speaking of pictures, I'm not 100% (or really even 90%) pleased with how yesterday's Carla Gugino picture turned out. Certainly it didn't turn out as well as the picture of Wendy as Queen Etherea, but in fairness to me, I did actually have some time constraints on the Gugino picture - I wanted to have it done in time for a relatively early posting - whereas I was free to work on the Wendy picture at my leisure.
I also think that the white outline that worked so well in the picture of Wendy didn't work out so well with the Gugino picture. Looking at it now, I might have approached that a little differently and gone for a different effect.
My approach to that picture was almost the exact opposite of the Wendy picture. With the Wendy picture I did the painting first, then brought it into Illustrator to add the line art. With the Gugino picture I did the line art first, then did the painting.
Ah well; it is what it is.
Yesterday when I was in line at Target to pay for my groceries there was a girl in front of me who looked rather disheveled, rummaging through her backpack for any stray change she could find. She looked to me as though she was following something, like a festival (a la Dead Heads and Phish Phanatics or whatever they called themselves). In any case, it seemed clear that in her recent history, and for the foreseeable future, she had been living out of her backpack.
After dredging up as much change as she could find, she asked the cashier, in reference to the top she was buying, "Is there going to be tax on this?" The cashier responded in the affirmative, and gave a percentage when the girl asked how much. This sparked the girl to engage in more furious digging in her backpack.
As was to be expected, when the time came the girl came up short. She told the cashier that she had a friend who had some money, but she didn't know where her friend was. I said, "How much do you need?" She said "Twenty-three cents." I dug in my pocket and pulled out a paltry eighteen cents, put the change back, got out my wallet, grabbed a dollar, and said, "Here."
She thanked me multiple times, collected all of the change she'd dug out of her backpack and tried to hand it to me. I said, "Keep it; I think you need it more than I do."
She thanked me again and went on her way.
After I'd been rung up I was on my way out the door when the girl came running up to me triumphantly clutching a crumpled single in her hand. I tried to wave her off, but she forced it onto me saying, "I insist," and then went on her way.
Before you say anything, no, I didn't do this just because she was cute...because she wasn't.
(The pierced lip and the fact that she looked like she hadn't bathed in a few days didn't help matters any.)
I did initially think that she was wearing a Coraline T-shirt, which made me slightly more inclined to be charitable, but it turned out to be something else.
Mostly I did it because I remember what it's like to be stuck scrounging for pennies and coming up short when trying to buy someting...though in my case it was usually when buying cigarettes or booze, so I couldn't help but be moved to a tiny, almost non-existent act of charity.
Last night I watched Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. From the title alone I knew it was going to be bad - indeed, that's why I'd decided to watch it, though having previously seen a clip of the titular Mega Shark leaping out of the ocean and taking down a jetliner added to my desire to endure the cheesiness - and the fact that it "starred" Deborah Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas prepared me for just how mind-numbingly bad it would be.
Or so I thought.
As bad as I knew it was going to be, it somehow managed to be even worse.
I think my "favorite" scene was not the bit with the shark taking a bite out of a jumbo jet, but the montage of the "scientists" busily engaging in "science," mixing colorful liquids together, then shaking their heads in disappointment. That we were given no indication of what the hell they were supposed to be doing only made it that much more entertaining.
The title characters really didn't get all that much screen time, and when they did, it tended to be repeats of the same handful of shots of the poorly-CGI-ed ocean dwellers swimming around not doing much of anything. Most of the "action" occurred off-camera, and rather than seeing some exciting tableau of mass destruction we got treated to scenes of the principal characters reacting to the devastation...despite the fact that in most cases there was no possible way for them to actually see the devastation in order to react to it.
Still, as I said, I knew it was going to be bad, and I went into it wanting to see a terrible movie. It's just that I got more than I bargained for.
In any case, that pretty much wraps up this entry. Yet again my plan to spend a weekend doing nothing and having that somehow result in me becoming independently wealthy* didn't quite work out, so I guess I need to start preparing for another week at work.

*It's kind of like the business plan of the Underpants Gnomes: Phase 1. Sit around doing nothing. Phase 2. ? Phase 3. Profit!

We're Not Unreasonable, I Mean No One's Gonna Eat Your Eyes

As mentioned (I think), the Riff Trax Live! event on Thursday was extremely entertaining.
The guys were riffing the "Citizen Kane of Bad Movies" (Or is it the "Caddyshack 2 of Bad Movies?"), the phenomenally horrible Plan 9 from Outer Space.



The movie, originally titled Graverobbers from Outer Space, features the last performance of Bela Lugosi before his death (he died during the filming, and was replaced by the the director's girlfriend's Chiropractor, who covered his face with a cape to "disguise" the fact that he wasn't Lugosi), former late night TV hostess (and niece of Finnish Olympian Paavo Nurmi) Vampira, and wrestler Tor Johnson, whose face was immoralized as one of the most famous Halloween monster masks.
As anyone who's seen the 1994 Tim Burton movie Ed Wood knows, Plan 9 was produced, written, and directed by crossdressing auteur Edward D. Wood, Jr.
What makes Wood's movies so entertaining - particularly Plan 9 - is that he had no idea how terrible his movies were, and he made them with such passionate sincerity that you can't help but find it all at least a little bit charming.
Still, the movies are absolutely terrible, and thus ripe for Riff Trax-style mocking.
In addition to Riffing Plan 9, the guys kicked things off with a live Riffing of an execrable old short film called Flying Stewardesses.
There was also musical entertainment in the form of Jonathan Coulton, who performed this amusing song (and another nerd-humor song about the future, as envisioned by a thirteen year old in the early 1980s reading Omni in his bedroom):



There were a couple of technical glitches with the broadcast, but nothing major. The only thing that really marred the event was the obnoxious laugh of the woman sitting next to me.
Scott commented that she seemed to let loose with it at inappropriate times, but I don't think that's entirely correct. I think the problem was that she doesn't have any other kinds of laughs in her repertoire, so even when something only warrants a mere chuckle, she cuts loose with the loud, artificial-sounding "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA."
Still, it was a small price to pay for an entertaining evening.
Monday, and the dreaded return to work, is rapidly approaching. I didn't do much with my time off. I picked up my comics on Thursday, did my grocery shopping on Friday, and got my haircut yesterday. Beyond that I've been doing some drawing, but haven't really produced anything worth posting here.

That Was 20 Years Ago?

First of all, happy birthday to my nephew Jeremy, who's 20 today.
...
20.
Holy crap.
Last night I was lying in bed failing to fall asleep because I'd made the mistake of taking a nap during the day, and I had a particular performance of the song Circles by Joe Satriani playing in my head.



The version in my head was recorded live, and it starts out with him kind of dicking around on the guitar, doing some improvizational stuff built around the opening strains of the song and tossing in some bits from other songs. I kind of like the improv bit, and I also like the song, and I also like the uncertainty of the audience as he's up there playing something they've never heard before, which is then replaced by cheering when he actually starts playing the song and they recognize it.
So, lying there, I thought, "Why am I just listening to this in my head when my iPod is right there?"
So I put the song playing, and it got me to thinking about the album that the studio version of the song is on, and I realized that I bought that album - Surfing with the Alien - in 1989. Then I realized that 1989 was 20 years ago.
And now my nephew - born some months after I bought that album - is also 20.
*Sigh*
It had been my intention to mow the lawn yesterday, but as it was about a thousand degrees outside that didn't happen. Nor did it happen today, as it was a thousand and one degrees outside.
(I may be exaggerating a little, but damn it was hot.)
And beyond that not much else is going on. I'm being haunted by the ghosts of creative ideas past and trying - mostly in vain - to placate them, which mostly involves unproductive drawing.
Posts will be even fewer and farther between over the next week and a half or so, since, as mentioned, I'll be heading to Michigan later this week.
I'm sure you'll manage.

The Boring Review

I’m sure I’ve told this story here before, but I’m going to tell it again, and there’s nothing you can do about.
Well, I suppose you could not read it, but that’s not going to make a difference because it’s not like anyone reads any of this anyway, so knock yourself out. Either way, I’m still going to write it.
Years ago, back when I was in college and married, I was sitting on the living room floor in our apartment bagging and boarding my comics and resisting the natural temptation to just sit there and read them, while my wife and a friend of hers were sitting at the kitchen table.
In the midst of my organizing and archiving efforts, I sort of paused and started staring off into space.
Eventually my wife noticed this and asked me what was the matter.
I said, “I was just thinking...isn’t the whole point of having a hobby that you’re supposed to be doing something you enjoy?”
The point was, I like reading comics, and I’m only a collector inasmuch as I hold onto the comics after I’ve read them. I’m not terribly interested in the preservation and organization thing, and the fact that I engage in any of those things is, again, rather incidental. If I’m going to keep the comics I’ve read, I need to preserve them, and if I want to be able to read them again I need to be able to find them.
This idea came to mind again today not because I’ve got hundreds of un-bagged comics sitting around in disorganized piles, but because I’ve spent most of the day drawing.
In parallel with that I’ve also spent most of the day swearing, and saying things like, “Do I even know how to do anything? I don’t know why I’m even asking, as the answer is clearly, ‘No, I don’t.’”
Fucking hobbies.
Seriously, why the hell am I spending hours just pissing myself off doing something that I ostensibly enjoy? I’m obviously not doing it for money, and it sure as hell doesn’t feel like I’m doing it for love.
In any case, before sitting down to “enjoy” my hobby, I did the usual Saturday morning routine, which involves getting up after getting much less sleep than I normally do during the week yet, paradoxically, feeling much more rested, sitting around for a while, then showering and dressing and heading out to the comic shop and to go grocery shopping.
I actually did a little less sitting around, so I ventured out into the world earlier than usual, and as a result got home sooner than usual.
I didn’t have to buy much in the way of groceries, as I didn’t need much, and on Thursday I’ll be heading to Michigan for a week, so there wasn’t really much point in buying a bunch of stuff.
I’m looking forward to seeing the family, and getting away from work, though having an abbreviated work week means having to get a bunch of shit done before it’s over.
Speaking of work, on Wednesday, per the conversation with my boss on Monday, I actually wore a suit.
This led to a lot of surprise and amusement on the part of most of the people I work with, who all assumed that I was interviewing for a different job (“Interviewing for that VP position Jon?”), or that I’d been to a funeral.
A lot of people referred to me as Gordon Gekko (the character Michael Douglas played in the movie Wall Street), and while I did feel an urge to go around telling people that I wasn’t happy with the second quarter numbers, I thought about saying, “I’m more like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho,” but I don’t need to add fuel to the whole “secret serial killer/serial killer waiting to happen” fire, so I kept my mouth shut.
For my part, wearing the suit caused the song Suit and Tie Guy by D.R.I., the video for which is posted below, to keep playing in my head. This was fine by me, as I actually like the song - most of you probably will not; D.R.I. is clearly not for everyone, but yes, mother, I do call that music - and it served as a nice change of pace to have a song that I actually like stuck in my head.




Beyond that, not much of interest has been going on. On Thursday I discovered that the hot intern, whose internship was ending on Friday, will become the hot contractor next week, which means that she’ll be around for a while longer and, assuming she ever was, she’ll no longer be off-limits.
I mean, theoretically it means that she’ll no longer be off-limits. In practice I remain Jon, so it doesn’t actually mean anything.
Speaking of interns, on Friday during our staff meeting we had a goodbye lunch for our intern, who is also sticking around for a couple more weeks, but will be interning for someone else. He seems like a good kid, and did a good job for us, so hopefully he’ll go far in life.
*Sigh* Now do you see why I haven’t posted anything in a few days? It hardly seems possible, but my life just seems to get even more boring with each passing day.

Who's Responsible For This?

There's an old Kids in the Hall sketch in which some corporate CEO all excited about the day's upcoming company event - a picnic or a softball game or somesuch - which will be taking place outside. However, when he opens the blinds in the conference rooms he sees that it's raining cats and dogs. "WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?" he screams in frustration. Everyone starts pointing fingers at each other, and he makes his way down the corporate ladder as each person assigns the blame to a subordinate, until finally he's down to the janitor, the person on the lowest rung, and the CEO declares, "You're fired!"
At that point, the rain stops, the clouds disappear, and it turns into a beautiful sunny day.
The reason this comes to mind is that earlier today I was checking out prices on flights to Michigan for my upcoming annual pilgrimage home.
Out of curiosity, and for the sheer hell of it, I decided to see how much more First Class tickets would cost than Ecoomy.
I wasn't prepared for the answer.
It was more than three times the cost of a regular ticket.
I've flown First Class a couple of times; it's totally not worth that much money. For those kinds of prices you ought to get head.
At the very least.
Even though I had no intention of flying First Class anyway, seeing that pissed me off, to the point that I found myself angrily wondering "WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?" and wish that it were possible to find that person and give him or her a call:

"Hello, operator? Get me the person responsible for setting the price on First Class airline tickets. Yes, I'll hold."
"..."
"dadadada da da da the girl from Ipanema - dammit! Stupid hold music."
"..."
"Hello, this is Tad Funklesworth, Director of First Class Airline Ticket Pricing. How may I help you?"
"Hi, my name is Jon and I was just wondering...are you fucking retarded? $700 more for a slightly bigger seat and a shitty meal? Assuming the flight even has meal service? And you don't even get head out of it? Go fuck yourself, Tad."

As mentioned, I'd never bother with flying First Class anyway, unless I was going to be spending hours and hours and hours on a plane. However, the flight from Dulles to Minneapolis only takes about two and a half hours, and the flight from Minneapolis to home doesn't even have a First Class section because it's just a tiny little puddle-jumper.
So fuck you, Tad, or whoever you are.

All Of The Above Leads Me To A Question Department:
When he turned 40, legendary comic book writer and beard enthusiast Alan Moore declared to friends and family that it was his intention to become a magician.
Not a stage magician, but an actual magician.
He said that he didn't really know what was going to come of it, and that he was trusting his loved ones to warn him if it seemed as though in his studies of the mystical secrets of the universe he might be going mad.
The question this raised among said loved ones was "How would we be able to tell?"
Which leads me to my question: does it seem like I'm getting angrier?
Seriously, I was totally pissed off about something that, by my own admission, had no real impact on me, and I find that it seems to take less and less to piss me off more and more.
I realize that it's an unfair question, given how high a level of anger serves as my baseline, and, as with Moore and madness, how would you be able to tell if Jon is actually getting angrier?
Still, I'm just curious as to whether or not my apparent increase in rage levels is apparent.

Random Declaration Department:
If they ever make a movie based on The Doom Patrol (I'm currently reading Showcase Presents The Doom Patrol Volume One), and it features The Brotherhood of Evil as the villains (which it should), the voice of Monsieur Mallah should be provided by Jean Reno.
Why? Because a super-intelligent, beret and bandolier-wearing French gorilla voiced by The Professional? I have two things to say to that: fuck and yes.

Apart from casting roles in movies that don't exist, getting pissed about the cost of something I have no intention of buying, and finding myself a little troubled by my rising levels of non-specific and multi-directional rage, not much else has been going on, so I guess that will do it for this entry.

Tiller-less

Yesterday I stopped at Home Depot on the way home to pick up some more of that lawn patch repair stuff to use in the front yard, as the test patches in the backyard have actually been yielding new grass.
I also wanted to pick up some kind of tiller thing for the immediate purpose of breaking up the soil in the areas in which I need to use the patch repair stuff, but also for the future date on which I decide to do something different with the flowerbeds, as I'm not really all that thrilled about what was left behind by the previous owner in the way of flowers.
I found the perfect one; a Black & Decker model that uses the same battery system as all of the rest of my stuff.
Naturally they didn't actually have any in stock, and weren't selling the display model.
I'd intended to mow the lawn - the front and side, anyway - when I got home, but by the time I did I no longer had the energy, so I put it off until today.
I also did some hedge trimiing, and then did the patch repair thing on one of the bigger sections of dead grass, using a shovel and a rake to break up the soil, since I'm still tiller-less.
And that's been pretty much all the excitement in my life.

A Conversation at Work:

My boss: That will free you up from some "grunt work."
Me: That's good, because I certainly have plenty of that.
My boss: We're definitely going to be moving away from that kind of thing. I've got some good projects lined up for you.
Me: ...great.

Why I Heart Slacktivist Continued:

In his most recent post about the Delaware legislature passing legislature that would add sexual orientation to anti-discrimination laws, Fred "Slacktivist" Clark demonstrates yet again why I Heart Slacktivist:

Those bills never passed. "Discrimination against gays still legal in Del.," read the headline on the paper's Web site, year after year after year.

That headline was celebrated, each time, by Christian conservative groups who were always ferociously opposed to the idea that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons should enjoy the same legal protections as everyone else in the state. Those groups liked to quote Leviticus to support the idea that homosexuality was an "abomination" to God. The idea, I guess, was that homosexuals were sinners and thus real, true Christians were therefore obliged to ensure that it remained perfectly legal to deny them access to housing or employment.

It's tempting to respond in kind, to say, I'll see your Leviticus and raise you a Deuteronomy:

Do not have two differing weights in your bag -- one heavy, one light. Do not have two differing measures in your house -- one large, one small. You must have accurate and honest weights and measures ... For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.

In other words, no fair not being fair. You can't have one price for one group of people and a different price for a different group. You can't have one housing market or one job market for one group of people and exclude other people from that market -- that's differing weights and measures, something the Lord your God detests. Inequality, discrimination, disenfranchisement and the dishonesty of double-dealing and double-standards turn out also to be abominations before the Lord.

And there's nothing in Deuteronomy to suggest a loophole that says it's OK to have differing weights in your bag so long as the short-changing one is for homosexuals. The Bible says, unambiguously, that these Delaware Christians' crusade in defense of legal discrimination is abominable and detestable.

So what we have here is a theological dispute -- a disagreement over the interpretation and meaning of the scripture. I'm confident I can win this argument, but before we get bogged down in the theological details of such a dispute, allow me to point out the most important thing to remember about all such arguments: They don't matter. Not even a little bit. Because none of what any of us thinks about the interpretation and meaning of the scripture is in any way relevant to the question before the legislature, a wholly secular body charged only with the wholly secular matters of law and justice.

Sometimes I Surprise Myself

Friday evening as I was moving some of my newly-purchased tools out to the toolshed my neighbors were in their yard setting up patio furniture and greeted me through the fence.
We talked for a bit and they asked if I had plans for the 4rh. I confessed that I did not, and they told me that they were having a barbecue and that I was welcome to join them.
Surprisingly enough, come Saturday afternoon, I did.
Even more surprising was how sociable I was, having conversations with multiple people, and sticking around for several hours before throwing out the "stuff to do" line and excusing myself.
As is always the case, I was sort of the odd man out, as I fell somewhere in between the primary age groups of the people there.
I didn't do much today beyond going grocery shopping. I didn't exactly fill up the refrigerator, but there's a lot more stuff in it now. The freezer is actually pretty full, though.
Other than that I've been making some half-hearted attempts at drawing, but just haven't been feeling it, and some half-assed attempts at straightening up the house a bit.
And now I've made a quarter-assed attempt at posting a blog entry.