FML. And FYL While We're At It

It should have been a good day.
Not that I had any particular expectations for it - sure, I can be dumb sometimes, but I'm not a complete idiot; I've learned a thing or two about expectations over the course of nearly four decades - but, overall, in general, for the most part, barring anything unforeseen, it should have been a good day. An okay day. A so-so day.
At the very least it shouldn't have been a massive shitstorm.
...
I'll back up.
It was Wednesday. After a restless night's sleep, it was off to a rocky start, but nothing too terrible or unusual. No matter what else happened it was going to be my last day physically at work until the new year, as I would be working from home on Thursday, and then burning up the last of my vacation so as to avoid pointlessly driving in to the ghost town that work always is at this time of year.
It didn't really start to go awry until around 9:45, when I was talking to my boss. We were supposed to meet that afternoon to have a sort of strategy session for a project I'll be working on once the break is over. She mentioned that she might be a bit late, as she had to go to a holiday lunch with another team. She then asked me if I wanted to go as well - "It's free food" - and forwarded me the invite.
The lunch was set to start at 11:30. I got to the place - a local pool hall/sports bar; it was the second time this week that I found myself at a pool hall, as my Director had thrown a holiday party for our team on Monday at a different pool hall - at around 11:35 and found it almost abandoned. I went up to the bar to ask if there was an area reserved for the party. The girl said she didn't know of any reservations, but went to check with her manager. She returned shortly and said that there were no reservations, but that she would set aside two pool tables for the group, should anyone show up. A few minutes later the phone rang; it was the Director of the team who was throwing the party - the one set for 11:30, mind you - calling to make a reservation for noon.
At least I was somewhat vindicated, inasmuch as there actually was a party.
Eventually people trickled in. I hung out for a while, ate some food that was really bad for me, then headed back to work to pack up and call it an early day.
Because I didn't want to have to venture out into the world on the last two days before Christmas, and because my usual Saturday world-venturing wouldn't be taking place, I'd decided to stop at the comic shop on the way home. I also needed to get gas, and my car, covered with salt and sludge from last week's snowfall, really needed to be washed. So I decided I'd gas up and get a carwash at the station near the comic shop, but once I got there I found that the carwash was closed - there was a large van parked in front of the entrance to prevent people from even trying to use it - so I decided I'd go to another station/carwash that was sort-of-but-not-really on my way.
I got there and pulled up to the pump, only to see a note saying that the carwash was out of order.
Further, after deciding to at least get gas, I discovered, after having initiated the usual process, that I'd misremembered the layout of the place and had pulled up to the diesel pump. I waited and waited for my transaction to time out, and then tried to locate an available pump - I should note that, at 2:30, when I left work, there had been just as much traffic as you'd be likely to run into at 5:00 - and managed to find one - just to be cut off by someone who swooped in and took it. I turned around and, awkwardly, pulled up to another open pump, where there was a note saying that all they had was premium.
Cursing, since gas is already expensive enough as it is,I decided to take a more circuitous route home and swing by yet another gas station/carwash.
I got to the gas station, swiped my card, pressed "Yes" when it asked me if I wanted a carwash, and then found myself kind of puzzled when it didn't ask me which type of carwash I wanted. I shrugged it off, thinking, "Maybe it asks afterwards because it gives some kind of discount based on how much gas you by," which is something I have encountered before. As the gas was pumping, I looked over, ruefully, at the multiple cars in line at the carwash.
Then the pump finished and printed out my receipt and went back to the start screen. What about the carwash?
I have no idea, and by that time I was far too infuriated to even want a carwash anymore, so I just headed home.
I sat around for a while wondering why The Universe was so dead-set against letting me wash my car, and then decided that I might as well head out, as I had to be in Manassas by 6 to meet Scott, Stacy, and some friends of theirs for dinner before heading off to see Tron: Legacy.
I should mention that I've always been kind of ambivalent about Tron. I saw the original in the theater when it came out back when I was 10. It had been kind of cool, I guess, but it wasn't exactly life-altering, and I'd never really had any strong nostalgia for it, and, with all due respect to Scott, who has been eagerly anticipating the movie for a long time, no significant interest in seeing the sequel.
Still, I'd agreed to go, so I punched my destination into the GPS and headed towards Manassas...during rush hour.
Things were going okay until I was about a mile from my destination. The estimated time on the display for me to traverse that final mile was two minutes.
Ha.
16 minutes later it was still telling me that this time, for sure, honest, it really meant that I would make it in two minutes. Not that it really mattered, since I was going to be a bit early anyway.
After 20 minutes spent slowly drifting in an endless ocean of slow-moving and not-moving-at-all cars, I'd gotten to the point where the GPS told me to "bear right." I did so, and to my right I could see a plaza that seemed likely to be the place.
The only problem was that "bearing right" had brought me onto the freeway, and there was no way to actually get to that plaza.
And as I was pulling into the intersection, my GPS said, "You have arrived at your destination. Your route guidance is now finished."
Uh-huh.
I had to drive a couple of miles before I got to an exit, and a few miles more before I could find somewhere to pull over and re-enter my destination - you can't actually set the GPS while in motion - and was on my way back, and only likely to be a couple of minutes late.
Or so I thought. As I was nearing the place once more - still unable to see any way to get there, my GPS initially told me to turn left - which was impossible - and then said, "Information is incomplete. Route guidance cannot provide turn-by-turn directions."
Eventually I found myself even further away, so I called Scott to let him know that I'd be a bit late. Stacy answered and said that they were about five minutes away and for me to get us a table. I explained that I was, according to the directions, 20 minutes away.
Eventually I got back into the vicinity, and, once again, my GPS led me back onto the freeway and away from my destination - after telling me that the intersection was my destination.
At that point I was prepared to just go home. I called Scott again and Stacy talked me out of just going home, and tried to provide me some guidance.
Eventually, after missing a turn, I got to the place.
I discovered that, during my initial attempt at getting there, I should have actually turned right several yards before where the GPS told me to bear right.
What my GPS had said would be a 20 minute trip - hell, even with the extra 20 minutes it took to travel that mile, it still would have only been about 50 minutes - had turned into nearly a two-and-a-half hour trip.
Given that I was already in a shitty mood before leaving home, things hadn't improved much by that time.
While the restaurant we'd eaten at had been selected for its proximity to the theater, we'd missed our intended showtime - thanks to me, which annoyed me even further, as I hate to be the source of problems - and would need to kill far too much time to catch the next one, so we decided on a different theater.
As we were leaving the restaurant I had said, jokingly - at least, such was my intention, though it wasn't taken that way, apparently - "If I'm not there, I went home."
On the way to the theater - which I more-or-less knew how to get to, and which my GPS had demonstrated an ability to direct me to in the past - I ended up driving alongside the only cop in Virginia who actually drives below the speed limit, which added considerable delay to my drive.
Also along the way, I'd started to question the directions, because I had thought it was a different theater.
Once I got there, I had to drive around the parking lot multiple times before finding a space a quarter of a mile or so away from the theater.
I double- and triple-checked the movie listings on my phone to make sure I was at the right place, then made my way inside with about ten minutes to spare.
Nobody was there. I tried calling and got voicemail. I sent a text and waited for a response that never came. Finally, as I was about to say, for the umpteenth time for the day, "Fuck. My. Life. Further, Fuck. Everyone's. Life. And, while I'm at it, Fuck. This." My phone started to vibrate. It was Stacy, informing me that no one had been able to get a signal, and that they were actually inside, seated. So I bought my ticket, then bought the smallest "large" Coke Zero I've ever seen, and made my way into the theater. By that time I was a seething cauldron of rage that was starting to boil over. Scott informed me that they hadn't bothered waiting for me because I'd said I "might not be coming."
And it should have been a good day.
A halfway-decent day.
An okay day.
A so-so day.
Fucking shitstorm.
On the way home, still feeling annoyed, I put the music playing and discovered that, to my chagrin - though by that time how much chagrin could I possibly have left? - that none of the CDs in the changer contained any loud, violent music, which was what I was in the mood for.
Eventually I settled on some Nick Cave, and had to content myself to concluding, as the song Knoxville Girl began to play, "Well, at least it has a murder in it."

Wish I'd Thought Of This Back When It Was Relevant...

So I had a thought occur to me today that I wish had occurred to me back when it would have been culturally relevant...
Basically, back when Avatar was still in theaters and there were stories about people who, after coming back to the real world after spending hours immersed in the 3D world of Pandora, found themselves suicidally depressed.
If I'd been thinking about it then, I would have suggested that someone do some sort of mashup with the song Abattoir Blues by Nick Cave and called it - What else? - Avatar Blues.



I got the Avatar Blues, right down to my shoes...

For No Reason (Not That There's A Need For One)

Here, it's a Nick Cave song. Why? Why not? I mean, it's Nick Cave.



If you're gonna dine with them cannibals, well sooner or later darlin' you're gonna get eaten...

Bonus: Nick performing Love Letter on Letterman:

Random Post-Christmas Blathering

One of the advantages of no longer feeling all of the excitement and anticipation that leads up to Christmas is that you don’t have to suffer the crash that often results once Christmas finally gets here and is over.
So for me today was a day much like any other, most of which, if I’m honest, generally tend to be a bit of a letdown anyway.
I really didn’t do much of anything today. I signed onto AIM and logged into my work e-mail and no issues ever came up. At the end of my “work” day, I took a nap, most of which I spent dreaming that I was getting up from my nap.
Then I planted myself in the recliner and dozed some more while watching a marathon of UFO Hunters on The History Channel.
Anyone know what the deal is with The History Channel and UFOs? UFOs seem to have taken the position once held by Hitler.
After that I watched a bit of a show on The National Geographic Channel focusing on the Book of Revelation.
Among the people interviewed was Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind books. Calling him the co-author is a bit of an overstatement, actually, as he mostly provided theological guidance to Jerry Jenkins, who did all of the actual writing.
I’ve seen pictures of LaHaye, but this was the first time I actually saw a moving image of him, and I have to say that he’s really damned creepy.
The man is in his 80s and has fewer gray hairs than I did when I was in my 20s. It’s a clear sign of vanity, as it looks utterly unnatural in a way that makes it obvious that it’s either a dye job or a toupee.
Why would someone whose sole focus is supposed to be on glorifying God and who believes that we’re living in the End Times ™ bother trying to mask the signs of aging? It’s rather unseemly, and, quite frankly, a little on the feminine side, which seems a little shocking for such a manly man.
Of course, it led me to wonder about something. Over in the comments sections of the Slacktivist dissections of the Left Behind books and movies we often speculate on the specifics of the Rapture.
When the believers are sucked up from the Earth by Jesus and his magical Dyson (the expensive pet hair one) – I imagine it looking rather like the scene in Spaceballs when the giant vacuum sucks up the atmosphere from the planet Dryad* – so that they can skip out on that whole “dying” thing, which they get a pass on because they’re just that much more special than any and all believers who came before them, they will be naked as the day they were born.
All their clothes will, like the rest of the non-believing – or not correctly-believing – populace, be left behind.
One assumes that this means any jewelry they’re wearing will be left behind as well, and so will any sort of implants, dental products like dentures and braces, and other things that aren’t natural parts of their bodies.
So what about hair dye? Will Tim LaHaye leave behind a pile of clothes and a puddle of dye?
And what about the contents of bowels and bladders? All the germs, bacteria, and mites living in and on the human body? Tattoos?
There are no answers to these sorts of questions in the books or the movies – or in the Bible itself, where there’s also no mention at all of the Rapture – because neither LaHaye nor Jenkins were bright enough to even consider that these sorts of questions might even arise**.
Fred, the titular Slacktivist, often refers to the Left Behind series as “the worst books ever written.”
His problem with them is not just the horrific characterization, the utter lack of understanding of how the world works or the nature of the human condition, or even their frankly baffling obsession with telephony and travel arrangements, but rather with the insane, puzzling, and, in his words evil theology upon which they’re based.
Obviously I’m not a theologian, but I do have a more than passing familiarity with the Bible and with a lot of theological theories and with history, so while I’m not really in the same position to judge the validity of the theology presented in the books that Fred is, I can certainly understand his perspective.
Even so, I don’t exactly have a horse in that race in the way that Fred, himself an Evangelical Christian, does, so most of my outrage over the books is reserved for the bad writing.
It all brings to mind a line from the song Sweetheart Come by Nick Cave:

So let’s not weep for their evil deeds but their lack of imagination

In any case, pretty much most of the above was simply the result of feeling like I should post a blog entry but not really knowing what I wanted to blog about.
For the record, my favorite part of the Nick Cave song I mentioned is

Walk with me now under the stars
It’s a clear and easy pleasure
And be happy in my company, for I love you without measure
Walk with me now under the stars
It’s a safe and easy pleasure
Seems we can be happy now, it’s late, but it ain’t never

Some of you may have noticed that the guy in my wildly inappropriate Christmas picture appeared to be wearing a tux, and if you did, you may have wondered why.
So, what, you don’t dress in formal attire when opening your Christmas presents? Heathens.
Actually, the reason for the tux is that the reference image I used was a picture that was part of a pictorial featuring Barbara Bach that ran in Playboy 30+ years ago, back when she was a Bond Girl. Hence the tux.
So now you know.

Not Exactly A Spoiler Department:
To provide some further thoughts on the movie version of The Spirit, I felt I should mention, for the benefit of the haters, that Frank Miller has a cameo in the movie, and, as has been the case in pretty much every movie cameo he’s had, he gets killed. Brutally. So there is that.
In Sin City, he gets his brains blown out. In Daredevil, I just noticed, he apparently gets killed by Bullseye with a pen, as he’s credited as “Man with pen in head.” I don’t remember that, nor do I remember his cameo in Robocop 2, but he probably bought the farm in that, too.
Appearing as himself in the movie Jugular Wine: A Vampire Odyssey, he gets killed by a swarm of vampires, while Stan Lee, who compares the vampires to “angels,” looks on.

*In “fairness” to LaHaye and Jenkins, in writing Left Behind their only real consideration was the “message,” so any other considerations – pacing, plot, creating characters who even remotely resembled human beings, etc. – would be looked upon as irrelevant and frivolous.

**It’s worth mentioning that when we watched Krull the other night Scott referred to this scene during the bit when the Black Fortress flies off into space piece by piece.

Damn The Torpedoes

Today was a long, busy day, full of scheduled and impromptu meetings and conference calls, and I was glad to see the end of it, particularly given that tomorrow is Friday.
On Wednesday my boss told me that I have to face the fact that I’m never going to get used to the whole five day work week thing. He has a point.
I mean, seriously, by Wednesday I’d put in three days: what more do they want from me?
What? Two more days? *Sigh* Okay…
After work today, on Kathleen’s invitation, I headed over to her bank, which was celebrating its grand opening in Leesburg today. The main draw? Free food.
When I got there, I found that that they were providing valet parking…and that Kathleen wasn’t there yet.
This was an issue because there were a lot of people – people I didn’t know – crowded into a very small space. So after getting my name tag and being greeted by the branch manager I went outside to call Kathleen and learned that she wasn’t too far away.
Back inside some guy saw me standing alone looking awkward and took pity on me, which was nice of him, but he wasn’t really the most dynamic conversationalist. Luckily Kathleen arrived shortly after that, and then proceeded to introduce me to a bunch of people who, while nice enough, clearly didn’t give two shits about who I was.
But whatever.
They had some sort of drawing in which people put their business cards in a bucket (Note to self: remember to talk to the admin about getting business cards), which Kathleen actually won. Apparently she’s been lucky in the “winning gift baskets” category of life lately, as she recently won a gift basket at one of her networking meetings.
Somewhere along the line the branch manager came and “borrowed” Kathleen to bring her to talk to some other people, and I went back to standing around awkwardly.
Eventually, after I’d taken out my cell phone to close some of the open applications, some other guy took pity on me and struck up a conversation based on the fact that we both had the same model of cell phone.
After he left, Kathleen made her way over and said that she wanted to do some more schmoozing, and I decided to head home.
And that was the day’s excitement.
(The Mayor of Leesburg was there. I had no idea that the Mayor was a woman, or really, any ideas about the Mayor at all, as I tend not to pay any attention to that sort of thing. I note that the Mayor was a woman not because I found it shocking, or that I fainted dead away after saying, “A woman Mayor? Now I’ve seen everything!” but rather because it brought to mind a line from the song God is in the House by Nick Cave: We have a pretty little square, we have a woman for a Mayor, our policy is firm but fair, now that God is in the house.)
In terms of the quality of the women in attendance at the event, feel it appropriate to quote the Sea Captain from The Simpsons: “Yarr, not a looker in the bunch.”
There was one woman there who was kind of sort of almost maybe attractive. She was definitely dressed to accentuate her best assets, or more appropriately, tittets, as she was wearing a very tight top that showcased her breasts, giving her these huge 1950’s style torpedo boobs. If I were any shorter she might have put one of my eyes out with those things.
However, while her top did wonders for that part of her, it also made her bulge in some unfortunate places.
I’m no good at guessing age, but I would estimate that she was at least a few years older than I am, and I think that I’d have to classify her as a cougar, a notion reinforced by a conversation I overheard her having with some other women who were encouraging her to pounce on some young prey she’s evidently been stalking.
Speaking of aging not-so gracefully, I realized that as of today my birthday is exactly a month away.
I wouldn’t normally care – it is a “pointless” age, after all, one of those in-between birthdays that isn’t any sort of milestone – but I’m a little more excited about my upcoming birthday, as this year my mom will be out for a visit. I’m looking forward to having her out here to see my house and meet my friends. I’d be even more excited if my dad were still around to come out with her, but I guess that’s just a birthday present that I’ll have to do without.
But speaking of birthday presents, if someone were of a mind to buy me something, I wouldn’t be averse to some of these, or maybe this, though of course, as always, I’m clearly not dropping birthday gift hints when I mention that Superman Family #171, the first comic book I remember ever looking at, is available for purchase at Mile High Comics (though the Very Fine copy is out of stock, which couldn’t possibly be because someone bought it for me thinking that I’ve been dropping hints to that effect), or that a case like this would be great to display it in.
In any case, the monstrosity that is the five day work week still needs to be completed, so bed time approaches, and I will bring this entry to a close.

More Awesomeness From Out Of The Cave

I did some additional YouTube spelunking and found some more Nick Cave awesomeness:

(Are You) The One That I've Been Wating For?

So I've sat and I've watched an ice age thaw...

Red Right Hand

You're one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan...

Breathless

Someone posted a video of himself doing a (not altogether bad) cover of this on YouTube, with the comment "OMG, the happiest song I know is by Nick Cave!" On the version of this song on the album, the flute work is rather more cacaphonous, sounding sort of like a 4th Grade Recorder recital, which I think adds a nice touch to the theme of breathlessness. Oh, and Nick Cave + Cute CGI Animals = Teh Awesome.

Hey Joe

Notable if only for what is probably the most famous song performed by the harmonica player accompanying him (though that really only adds to the existing awesomeness).

Loverman

L is for Love and O is for Oh yes I do...

I couldn't find a decent clip of People Ain't No Good, but there's lots of good stuff out there, for anyone interested.
Oh, and if you don't understand why any of this is awesome, the odds are you never will, so it would be pointless for me to try to offer any explanation.

That's What I'm Thinking To Myself Right Now

On the topic of things that - like New Frontier - are awesome, I just found this video clip of Nick Cave (and some guy I don't know; Nick is the one in the blue jacket with the mullet) singing What A Wonderful World:

Red Right Hand

Back when I was in high school, before I made whatever breakthrough it was that allowed me to draw women - something I had previously been unable to do - I spent a lot of time drawing things related to the music I listened to. This meant drawing a lot of heavy metal album covers, but it also meant, on occasion, drawing images inspired by the songs themselves.
Most of it wasn't especially good, but not much of what I did then was especially good anyway, so that's hardly suprising.
In the spirit of "Who's to say much has changed since then?" I submit to you this picture inspired by the Nick Cave song Red Right Hand.



Is it any good? I don't know, but at least it's something a little different from the usual portraiture/tutorial results, so you can't say that I don't change things up a little (even if I do so by going back to doing things that I used to do almost 20 years ago).